


Sa Sarad

by Blue_Sunshine



Series: The Desert Storm [18]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Abduction, Adopted Children, Assassination, BAMF Ben Naasade, Baby Jedi are dangerous, Betrayal, Character Death, Civil War, Claustrophobia, Clone Wars memories, Death Watch (Star Wars), F/F, F/M, Gen, General Ben Naasade, Grief/Mourning, Guerrilla Warfare, I miss Cody and Rex, Jango Fett is King, Jedi are not meant to be soldiers, M/M, Mandalorian Culture, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Military Training, Obi-wan is trying his best, Sith Plots, Temple bombing, Violence, WARNING: potential triggers in structural collapse, War, Yinchorri, Young Obi-Wan Kenobi, military action, trapped characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 68
Words: 175,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/pseuds/Blue_Sunshine
Summary: Sa sarad cuyir gotal de pitat, runi cuyir gotal de akaan.As flowers are grown by rain, so is the soul grown by war.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze
Series: The Desert Storm [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1311746
Comments: 4575
Kudos: 3209





	1. Chapter 1

The sun shone a brilliant orb of peachy-red through the industrial haze that turned what should have been a blue sky into a watery grey. Not so different, Adonai Kryze thinks, than looking at the sun through the stain of smoke over a battlefield, or the dust soot haze that the seasonal winds tossed up from of the scorched plains of Mandalore.

Some would think it an omen, but the familiarity of the sunrise on Thesme soothes something in Adonai. He can only pause for a moment to enjoy it, his time pressed, and soon enough the open air of the courtyard passes his stride by for more tall, narrow corridors, utilitarian design covered poorly with mediocre artworks.

But then, despite being the capitol of the sector, Thesme was an overall mediocre, lackluster place. Still, as a Republic outpost, he had expected a bit more grandeur. Or perhaps he was simply biased, and missing the fortitude and artistry of Mandalorian architecture.

But needs must, so here he was, away from home with an impatient itch under his skin. He fears Fett’s verve may be rubbing off on him, that in spite of diplomacy being the purview of the _Jorad’alor_ , he is more and more reluctant to attend these talks and sessions, to plea before committees and argue treatise, as the fires of civil war rage and grow hotter back in his own sector.

“ _Buir_.” Satine calls for his attention, and he scans ahead for the pale flash of violet, teal, and silver that make up her skirts and capes; all the finery of a true diplomat – save the slim braces adorning her arms, wrist to elbow, polished beskar intricately detailed with engraved lilies of mandalore, an homage to her inheritance.

She’s returned to him from Coruscant a stranger made out of the girl who had left Mandalore, and yet a young woman who understood him far better than the child he’d sent away.

Unfortunately, Satine’s understanding meant she argued with him better, not less. But he was all the more proud of her, in spite of her differences in political ideology, and he was painfully grateful to her, for her refusal to abandon his side in spite of their contrary views.

Adonai could not bear the loss of a second child.

His first, Bo-Katan, was closer at hand than she has been in years, but the gulf between them now seemed ever more beyond crossing, and it had little to do with her adoption by Jango Fett and everything to do with the arguments left between them, aching with bitterness and regret.

“You were up early.” Adonai comments, looking over Satine’s face with pride. She is a picture of poise and sharp dignity, her silver-blue eyes ice-like and her face a perfectly done up mask of beauty and control. She looks older than seventeen, but her make-up served her better than her youth, in politics, and he refrains from resenting it.

“I wanted to be prepared for any surprises.” His daughter replies pointedly, and then. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Adonai returns, feeling rewarded by her small, wry smile that reminds him very much of her mother.

A familiar sound-sensation trembles through the air, catching Adonai’s attention, and he lifts a brow, tilting his head towards the landing docks. Satine’s eyes flash, and she turns with a bit more eagerness than he imagines she intends to show, as a _kom’rk_ class Mandalorian vessel eddies down to land in amongst the diplomatic cruisers and overpriced or over armored private transports that crowded Thesme port today, with the meetings taking place.

Their surprise is not the two Jedi that disembark from that vessel, down to lightest shed of their armor – just pauldrons, lower vambraces, and greave-boots, so as not to so heavily imply a bias in Mandalore’s favor, but still paying respects to the culture they’ve claimed for their own. Adonai had not wanted the Jedi here, where it would seem they might be interfering in the affairs of Mandalore, pouring fuel on Death Watch’s fervent fires. But the Senate insisted, if Adonai meant to call together this committee of Outer Rim sectors, and it does not surprise the Speaker of Mandalore in the least that it was Ben Naasade and Obi-Wan Kenobi who came.

The surprise is their third companion, a small black-haired padawan wearing heavy boots and plastoid bracers with a stride of confidence that seems a bit too bold for the obvious youth of her face.

Naasade and Kenobi seem to spot him at the same moment, with a reflexive pause before their fists cross their chests in tandem. “ _Jorad’alor. Ad be Kryze_.” They greet him and his daughter, hastily copied by the child in their wake, whose eyes light up but whose training fortunately restrains her from anything more exuberant than that.

“Master Naasade, Padawan Kenobi,” Adonai nods to each of them, noting with some surprise that Obi-Wan Kenobi had grown quite a bit since the Duke last saw him in person, standing shoulder to shoulder with his master now, though his frame was still a little smaller. His hair had been shorn recently, an upright hedge of lightening auburn, and his eyes seemed a little less green than Adonai remembered them. The braid trailing down his neck and over his shoulder was certainly longer.

Adonai smiles a bit to see it, remembering the boy as he had first seen him, bashful of his own boldness, with a purpose too big for his scrawny shoulders. He’s grown well since then, but looking him over, he thinks the boy is still perhaps much the same.

“Duke Kryze, allow me to introduce Padawan Serra Keto.” Naasade speaks smoothly, laying a resting hand on the girls shoulder.

Adonai nods, and the girl looks like she wants to blurt out a dozen questions, but Naasade’s fingers twitch on her shoulder, and she bites her lip, flashing a mutinous look at the Jedi Master before turning it down to the floor and gathering herself. It’s quite a display, and Adonai will admit to a bit of amusement. “She’s keen to understand more of the culture of Mandalore, after mine and my padawans example.” Naasade comments, and it takes Adonai a moment to parse what he means by that.

And then he understands, and looks at the girls heavy boots and plastoid bracers, and the imitating style of her robes next to Padawan Kenobi’s, and feels his brow twitch a little. That was…. unexpected.

Then again, Adonai thinks ruefully, she would not be the first, would she?

~*~

“You look tired.” Satine comments, glossed lips turning in a frown, and Obi-Wan rubs at his brow.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.” He admits, watching his Master walk ahead of them with Duke Kryze, dark brow cloak and copper-flashing sleeves contrasting with the lavender fall of the Duke’s cape. Master Ben pauses and turns, reigning in Padawan Keto, and his shadow shifts the pale purple of Kryze’s cape into something deeper, less the color of tradition and more like mourning. Obi-Wan shakes his head.

“Bad dreams?” Satine inquires, her own silver-blue eyes a little shadowed, with far too apt and understanding. Obi-Wan clenches a fist, worried terribly of what she must be feeling, of what she must be experiencing, with her people at war with themselves. Worried over how she is faring. Assurances over holo-call are not all satisfying, he’s come to find out.

“Something like that.” Obi-Wan replies, earning a short look which makes him defensive. “I’m not being vague on purpose!”

A silver-blonde brow lifts, a complete and utter judgement of that statement coming from the mouth of a Jedi. “I think I dream about Mandalore.” He says cautiously.

“How do you mean?” Satine frowns. “Do you have…” She hesitates, uncertain as to the ways of the Force, and how much she might hold faith in them. “Visions?”

“Nothing that makes sense.” Obi-Wan replies. “Just… impressions, really. Fire and smoke. White lilies blooming out of ash and blood.”

Her hands shift, fingers trailing over the engravings on her bracers. “Maybe that’s good then.” She smiles, though her eyes show uncertainty. “Maybe that means there is hope at the end of this war. The lilies of Mandalore are the symbol of our prosperity.” She tells him.

“Perhaps.” Obi-Wan nods, wanting to believe it. And part of him does. But when he wakes from these dreams, haunting him like a half forgotten fairytale, breathless and confused, there is something more to it, something just on the edge of his thoughts, the tip of his tongue, something he feels he is supposed to remember, but can’t.

~*~

“I would say your adamance that the Jedi not be a presence in this would endear you to no one,” Ben informs Duke Kryze, sequestered now in his private office, “ but you were not alone in that argument. However, like you, the Jedi were also overridden.”

Duke Kryze turns to him, surprised. “The Jedi argued not to come?”

“I made clear to the Council that Jedi interference – even the appearance of such – would only worsen the current tensions within the system of Mandalore. The massacre of the Medical Research Station is proof enough of that.” Ben replies. “But voices within the Senate insisted on a Jedi escort, given the high-visibility target this conference presents, and the terroristic actions the _Kyr’stad_ prefer to employ.”

“I would argue that you increase the value of that perceived target.” Duke Kryze mutters.

“So would I.” Ben agrees ruefully, watching the Duke carefully, until silver-green eyes turn up.

“Surely the Death Watch’s influence is not so deep?” He utters. “Not so far as the Senate….” He shakes his head.

“The Death Watch themselves? No, I highly doubt it. But their allies?” Ben grimaces. “We know the _Kyr’stad_ have ties to the Mining Guild, which has sway enough on its own, but I also sense another hand in this. I fear the Jedi Order have their own enemies, and that they and the Death Watch can be far too mutually beneficial to each other.” Ben sighs, stroking his beard, and Kryze curses briefly and paces.

“What does a Mandalorian Civil War have to do with the Jedi?” Ben hears him mutter, and the jedi master looks down at the floor. Ben could confess, without going into detail, much of his suspicions to Kryze, but he fears there is little to nothing the other man can actually _do_ with that knowledge, and he had concerns enough to bear already.

“I apologize for adding to your burden, _Jorad’alor_.” Ben murmurs. “But you should focus on your purpose here. You have to speak before the conference in…” He glances at the chrono. “Less than an hour, and it will not be an easy appeal. Convincing your galactic neighbors to choke off the Death Watch’s external resources….” It was a bold endeavor, its audacity made all the more impressive by the fact that Duke Adonai Kryze, through sheer force of character, a bit of cunning eloquence, and perhaps a small amount of intimidation, had actually managed to get the neighboring sectors and systems nearest Mandalore to agree to such a conference in the first place.

“As my daughter could tell you, Master Naasade, I will fret as I please.” Kryze informs him dryly. “I’m more than equipped for this gallery.” He gestures vaguely to the waiting politics beyond this office. “And nothing I do in the next hour will change its outcome. Either I will succeed or I will fail. Much else waits beyond this.”

Practical fatalism – Mandalorian through and through.

“I suppose it does.” Ben nods, teasing at his whiskers with his own brooding thoughts. “How is Mandalore faring?”

“Fett doesn’t keep you apprised?” Kryze inquires, nothing critical in his tone. Amusement, more than anything else, perhaps a bit of rueful surprise (even after all this time) that Fett, of all people, managed to befriend a Jedi Master.

“He may seek my advice from time to time, but I am hardly receiving battle reports;” Ben huffs with a little exaggeration. “ And his perspective on the situation, I believe, has a differing scope than your own. I would like to hope that my presence not be a complete detriment – you are free to take advantage of me while I am here.” Ben replies, spreading his arms in gesture.

Kryze looks him over piercingly, and then nods, running a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. The man looks weary, Ben thinks, and too restless, to on edge, to truly rest. Yet, after years of vague uncertainty, Ben doesn’t wonder if real war did not come to Adonai Kryze as something of a sickly relief.

“ _Manda’yaim_ is under martial law. Krownest and Concord Dawn are active battlelines, Concordia is cut off, the blockades on the shipping lanes changing banners by the day.” Kryze reports bluntly. “Not all the Old Clans rallied to Fett. Some are claiming _neutrality_ , waiting to see who wins.” He spits it out. “Others I fear supported Death Watch all along and the rest….” The other man grinds his jaw, the lines around his eyes sharp as a blade. “Blood is running in the fucking streets of Keldabe, and Sundari’s New Mandalorians are holding anti-conflict _protests_ while the banner of the True Mandalorians protects their city.”

There’s a viciousness to his tone Ben would expect from Fett, but hadn’t from Kryze, especially given his daughter’s political inclinations. “They want peace.” He murmurs.

“How the fuck do they expect to achieve it?” Kryze snaps bitterly. “If we fail, _Kyr’stad_ will slaughter them. Do they really believe Fett and I _wanted_ this war?”

Ben, with all due caution, will not remark on the desires and intentions of Jango Fett in this matter, but of Kryze – of Adonai Kryze, no, Ben does not believe he wanted this war. He believes that what Kryze wanted had very little sway in the matter.

“It is outside their philosophy to accept war as a necessity.” Ben says, sighing. “Therefor….” He trails off, leaving it at that.

“Therefor the integrity of our leadership is simply a casualty for their righteousness?”

“It is not out of malice.” Ben murmurs appeasingly.

“I think that makes it worse.” Kryze replies, full of bitter frustration.

“Can you forgive them?” Ben inquires, concerned. Kryze glares at him, gaze sharp as flint.

“They are _my people_.” Kryze utters uncompromisingly. “Of course I forgive them.”

Ben snorts softly and shakes his head. This, this utter incongruity tied so deeply to the creed of Mandalore is why so much of the galaxy simply took them for crazy.

~*~

Assigning the class to study the live broadcast of this Outer Rim theater of local politics surrounding the Mandalorian Civil War had a little to do with teaching them how to observe and evaluate the effectiveness of persuasion in a given argument where they do not yet know the outcome, and therefor it cannot bias there opinions, and a lot, Adi Gallia will admit, with her wanting to keep a closer eye on this situation, given the unease surrounding it.

Duke Adonai Kryze had not wanted the Jedi in attendance at the conference on Thesme. Master Ben Naasade had not wanted the Jedi in attendance at the conference on Thesme.

Yet Adi Gallia and Ichi-Tan Micoda together had not been able to reasonably refuse, so sharp had been the insistence, and blunt the implication of retaliation for refusal. Nothing provable, infuriatingly enough, nothing concrete, but both she and Knight Micoda had sensed it, and had been forced to warily concede.

It was galling, but in a way it was also illuminating – it implied that whatever powers that sought to conflict with the Jedi were very, very interested in the situation in the system of Mandalore, and sought to influence its outcome.

Knowing this, Adi took it right back to the Council, and, further, to the Master of Shadows, and fully supported assigning this to Master Naasade before he had the chance to volunteer.

So they were all on observance.

Made only slightly tricky in Adi’s case as she was stepping in as instructor for upper level Speech and Argumentation. But she could be creative.

The conference was being held in a trade center in the Capitol of Thesme, built in smaller scale resemblance to the Senate Dome, with an oval theater of pods surrounding a central platform. Even in local matters, the conference attendees measured in the hundreds, representing surrounding sectors and systems, of far more variety and contrast than the Core.

Adi pauses the broadcast at times, asking pointed questions, allowing her class to make observations, even form initial speculations as to the outcome, based solely on their brief understanding of the situation as Adi has outlined it for them.

“That they attended at all speaks well in Duke Kryze’s favor, doesn’t it?”

“The shape of the room puts him in center focus, like an authority rather than an equal, that’s a passive persuasive tool, isn’t it?”

“I think it makes him seem like he’s alone against all of them.”

“I see Padawan Kenobi!”

Some of them chortle, spying the three jedi on the upper gallery, Padawan Kenobi leaning on the railing, and Master Naasade with a passive hand on Padawan Keeto’s shoulder that Adi can tell from half a galaxy away is meant to keep the girl still. The battlemaster’s padawan was well-disciplined, but her confidence often leant itself to swift action, too often before she’d really thought her actions through.

Unorthodox as Master Naasade may be, he seemed to have a knack for reigning that sort of behavior in.

Duke Kryze’s opening speech is all about the decorum required in politics, gratifying the attendees for bothering to show up in spite of the fact that it was their duty to attend to such matters, and while his sincerity and his tone convey respect, she can tease out the underlying impatience in him to get to the point.

And yet… in a manner, it only adds to the poignancy of his following argument. They are past nicety and indecision; they are past delay. What is required now is decisiveness and action.

The largest point of contention in his proposal is the effect on commerce and economic prosperity in the region, argued hotly by a representative of the Mining Guilds, and argued with droll factuality by a lonely representative of the Banking Clans.

The Trade Federation is an absence Adi notes with a frown, but the Trade Federation has bigger issues to deal with on the Outer Rim, given the current legislation up in the Senate regarding taxation and trade rights.

Kryze effectively argues that decisive agreement now will lessen the commercial impact in the region, as once the Death Watch has been rooted out, the sector will stabilize, which will improve trade and investment.

The Mining Guild retorts that the Death Watch _is_ the more stable of the two. That Kryze’s arguments bias heavily against a ‘respectable business association’ whose crimes have been ‘aggravated’ by a failing administration clinging to power.

The debate _rages_.

Duke Kryze’s passion is a cold, ferocious thing, and it lasts, when his opponent starts to flag, losing the traction they had gained – and they had gained traction, the subtle shift of interest and agreement, of apathy and disagreement laid out in the background of the footage like cards dealt in a hand that Adi read easily. But the Mining Guild’s side of the debate peaks, and Kryze just keeps going, and Adi can tell his opponent does not have the wits nor the endurance in him to rally again. He’ll run out of clever words and ensnaring points of contention before Duke Kryze runs out of conviction. It does not help that the rousing nature of his own debate has left the speaker a little breathless and flushed, and that his opponent is a Mandalorian warlord, and as cool and controlled now as he was on his first word.

Adi pauses the broadcast again, and a few of her keener students point out the same observation. It doesn’t change their arguments, it doesn’t effect which side is just or more favorable, but this lesson is about persuasion, not justice. Adonai is someone people are more willing to believe in, and his presentation is part of that effect. He is the speaker for his people, a leader through and through, and he embodies that image, that integrity, from the pressed silk of his finery shirts, to the gleaming weight of his armor carried by a rigid spine, to the piercing clarity of his gaze, cutting even through the holo-camera.

Adi doesn’t know what it is that warns her when she starts the broadcast again – the shift of light of movement unexpected? the understated buzzing in the feed, crackling with some minor interference? the sudden shift of Duke Kryze’s attention?

Whatever it was, it drives a shard of ice right down her spine and into her stomach, festering with dread.

He looks up towards the higher gallery, where the swirl of a cloaks hem shows Naasade to have turned swiftly, and the stumbling steps of a padawans heavy boots taking her out of the edge of the frame from an abrupt shove.

Duke Kryze turns too late, looking to Naasade when Naasade had looked to the _threat_.

His hands spasm in surprise, releasing the podium. Indrawn gasps and silence, in an instant. Duke Kryze looks hard-edged, battle-ready and uncertain as to where that battle is and what shape it is about to take. Silver-blonde hair gleams under too-bright lights, one hand drifting up towards his chest, stopping halfway. His body convulses out an involuntary cough, and spills red.

Adi cuts out the broadcast just a second too slow to prevent her students from hearing Satine Kryze screaming for her father.


	2. Chapter 2

His hands shake, the datapad clutched between them in a grip threatening to snap the small device.

| _A white lily_

_Reaching for the sun_

_Blooms defiantly on barren ground._ |

Weeks of vague dread and uncertain flashes, finally clear in his mind. The words came to him at last, coherent and complete, instead of the taunting, teasing, half recalled snatches he’s been struggling to piece together.

_| Oil seeps through the silt and fire catches the fields_

_But does not burn well._

_There is little to burn at all._

_It smolders_

_And smokes_

_And the smoke smothers the sun. |_

How long has he been dreaming of that? Haunted by vague images and half-understood metaphors. How long has this been tucked away in his mind, waiting to be solved?

_| The lily withers_

_Blackens_

_Dies._ |

Obi-Wan’s expression crumples in pain and outrage, and he flings the datapad across the room, the lines burned into being behind his eyes regardless. Half a second later, he reaches out a hand and stops the datapad from smashing into the wall. Satine is in the next cabin over, having finally wept herself into exhaustion. He doesn’t want to wake her.

_| The sky weeps_

_And the rain is blood._

_The ground does not wash clean_

_But it is no longer barren._

_One and a thousand more lilies bloom_

_Their seeds_

_Sown_

_By the death of the first._ |

Obi-Wan hates it. Whatever it is – poem, warning, prophecy. Probably the latter. What was its purpose, in the end? Adonai Kryze was dead, and all the warning the Force had to offer hadn’t helped him. Worse, worse, was what the ending implied. Satine had suggested, based upon his scattered visions, that perhaps it meant there was hope for Mandalore. But Obi-Wan can’t bear the idea, the implication, that Adonai Kryze _had_ to die for it.

He lets the datapad drop onto his bunk across the room, pushes his shoulders off the cold support of durasteel behind him, and leaves his cabin in search of his master.

Obi-Wan still can’t quite grasp what happened. Everything had been fine. The mild tension of swaying arguments hadn’t been alarming in the least, and the room had been turning in Duke Kryze’s favor, building in the Force like a spring of promise and potential and _here-something-is-about-to-give_ , _change_ - _change_ - _change_ , and then-

And then a cold dark malice so sharp and sudden, all warmth and light stolen from his senses, debilitating and painful –

He’d caught Padawan Keto from her stumble on instinct, only realizing once her shoulders were steady under his hands that his master had shoved the girl to him, whirling in reaction to the screaming threat of danger in the Force.

And then it was gone. And then – then it was already too late.

Obi-Wan didn’t notice how Satine had gotten from her pod to the center dias, but she was screaming for her father, dropping to his side and soaking her skirts in blood. There was so much blood, so quickly. She had her fathers hand gripped tightly between her own, but Obi-Wan could feel the absence of Adonai Kryze’s life the way one could feel the absence of the sun. He was already dead.

In a blink, he was already dead.

Master Ben leapt from the gallery in a force-assisted jump, and Obi-Wan scrambled to follow, keeping one hand on Padawan Keto’s arm, carrying her with him.

“Cowards!” Tears ran down Satine’s young face, and she turned her despair and vengeance on the room, on the shadows behind the too bright lights, on the assassin no one had seen, no one had sensed, no one could find. “Where is your _honor_? Where is your _pride_? You couldn’t even face him! He was my father! Would you dare face _me_?” She shouts, her anger a cold, ferocious thing, as she kneeled in her father’s blood, tears glittering on her pale face. She was every inch her father’s daughter.

It hurts to look at her, so Obi-Wan looks to his master, the Force still shrieking with danger, with thread, with dread. They aren’t safe.

Obi-Wan does not have the words to understand the aching, indescribable look on his master’s face as he stands over Duke Kryze’s body, but in a moment, he doesn’t have to, as his master turns sharply, loops an arm under Satine’s ribcage, and lifts her forcefully away.

“ _No_!”

Obi-Wan stumbles for catching her, when Master Ben swings her into his arms.

“The ship. Go. Now.” He orders, and Obi-Wan doesn’t have to think, he just obeys, Satine gasping denial, trying to claw her way free, too distraught to fight properly, the way she was taught to. Master Ben gives them a shove, and Obi-Wan leaps from the dias, knees threatening to buckle when he lands, but he lands, and he runs.

Master Ben came after; slower, more careful, with Duke Kryze’s body, now carefully laid in stasis in the _Lighthawk’_ s infirmary.

Obi-Wan finds his master in the cockpit, staring into the blue streams of hyperspace.

“What happened?” Obi-Wan croaks, after a minute of solid, stifling silence.

~*~

Ben closes his eyes at his padawans pained inquiry, the boy still reeling with grief and confusion. Ben gives in to his own, leaning forward and burying his face in his palms.

In Ben’s lifetime the Mandalorian Civil Wars had _started_ with the death of Adonai Kryze. There had been no Medical Research Station attack, no Jango Fett to stand as the _Mand’alor_. It had kicked off sooner, this time around, and Ben had hoped that circumstances would avert the death of Duke Adonai Kryze.

“What did you sense?” Ben turns the questioning back on his padawan, who even in circumstances such as this, must learn to make his own observations, trust his own instincts, and prepare to act according to what they tell him.

“Nothing.” Obi-Wan blurts, looking distressed and angry with himself. “Not until it was already happening, and then it was… it was….Master, was that…?” Obi-Wan looks to him, searching and hoping he does not find what he thinks he will find. Ben lifts his face from his hand and looks back steadily. Obi-Wan worries his lip, and then resolves himself. “The Dark Side. I sensed the Dark Side. Was this the work of the Sith?”

Ben nods, in despondent affirmation. He hadn’t been certain – such darkness, even such malice, can come from any soul with powerful enough intent, but the method itself…

Ben had knelt at Adonai’s side a moment after his death, and put a hand to his chest, just beneath the clear strike of a wound from a weapon none saw nor heard. His blood hadn’t even been tacky, still slick and fresh, still seeping across his cloths, across the floor beneath him.

But under Ben’s shaking fingers, his body had been cold to the touch, the Force screaming _wrong-wrong-wrong_. More than mere assassination, there had been something truly _unnatural_ about his death, as if he had not been killed so much as he had had the life ripped from him.

There may have been a wound, but a critical scour of the unmarred spaces behind Adonai had only made Ben more certain that there had not, in fact, been a weapon. He has no way to truly prove it, of course, but he believes someone used the Force to murder Adonai Kryze.

“Why?” Obi-Wan demands. “What could the Sith want with Mandalore?”

Ben gestures towards his padawan, and Obi-Wan steps forward, sinking shakily into the copilots chair. “You know our history.” Ben says simply, feeling tired and cold on the outside, and feeling something deep inside burn and twist towards writhing.

Obi-Wan’s frown sharpens into a scowl, and he grinds his teeth while thinking.

“The _Mando’ade_ have sided with the Sith, in the past.” Obi-Wan admits grudgingly, his unhappiness written across his face. He glares out the viewscreen. “The Death Watch are likely willing to do so again.”

“What else?” Ben prompts. The furrow in Obi-Wan’s brow deepens, and Ben thinks faintly of the creases that now mar his own face from making that expression far too often.

“Mandalore is the strongest bastion of civilized power in the Outer Rim.” Obi-Wan says slowly, thinking it through. “Destabilizing Mandalore can destabilize the surrounding sectors as well. It creates discord…chaos….power vacuums.”

Ben offers another dispassionate nod, and Obi-Wan slumps into the back of his seat, casting a brooding gaze out the viewscreen. “What do we do?” he whispers, after long minutes gone by.

 _I don’t know_ , Ben thinks, but can’t say. His padawan needs him to provide certainty and assurance right now, not stew in his own torrent of doubts.

“We start by returning Duke Kryze’s body to Mandalore.” Ben says instead.

Obi-Wan takes a steadying, if watery breath, and nods. He gestures at the controls. “I’ll…stay here.” He murmurs, looking back at his master. “I think Padawan Keto could use a little reassurance too.” He says, leaving unsaid that he does not feel like he himself can offer it.

Ben nods and rises, gripping his padawans shoulder for a brief squeeze as he does.

Ben walks the length of the ship, sensing even in fitful sleep Satine Kryze’s grief and vengeance and hollow, palpable _loss_ , rousing painful memories. So far, he’s barely been able to look at the girl, let alone speak to her beyond the barest of courtesies for fear of what doing so might invoke. But he had found, looking into her face as his padawan brought her aboard, full of distress and refusal to break, that it did not consume him with sorrow and longing. He looked at her and saw… a girl, young and brittle and unfamiliar. She reminded him terribly of the woman he loved, but his heart and mind did not quite bridge the distance into convincing itself that she _was_ the woman he loved. He’s grateful for that.

He finds Serra Keto in the cargo hold, throwing herself through her saber forms with shaky recklessness, green eyes red rimmed and Force presence spiky and fraught.

“You are going to wear yourself out doing that, and teach yourself all sorts of bad habits.” Ben chides softly.

The young padawan hiccups, grip white-knuckled on her saber. “I know.” She utters, voice trembling. “But I don’t want to think.”

Ben sighs, feeling very poorly about the battlemaster’s padawan having gotten caught up in all of this. She’d been so excited to meet the Duke. Ben knew there had been risk in the mission, but she was the top of her class in combat, given her master, and he hadn’t expected this.

“How about you try and get some sleep.” Ben suggests, gently stepping into her way and guiding her lightsaber down.

“I don’t think I can. I just…” She swallows, shaking her head.

“I’ll help.” Ben assures her. “Come now.” He offers a hand, and she finally disengages her saber, clipping it to her belt.

Ben ushers her back to her cabin and ends her into sleep with a mild but firm suggestion. Hopefully, it will prevent any dreams.

Ben leaves quietly, and scrubs a hand over his face, feeling drained and restless and prickly. He then notices that he’s still got Adonai Kryze’s blood on his hands, crusted around his fingernails.

He should mediate. Calm himself, take control of that burning, writhing pit deep inside of him before it boils over. But if he does that all he’ll be left with is the weariness, the blunt grief and the chill lingering around his spirit.

He goes in search of his holocron instead.


	3. Chapter 3

Thunderheads roll and rumble overhead, the first drops of rain plinking listlessly off the hull, pittering and drumming in half-hearted swells. They can taste the damp, on the breeze skittering over untamed fields and in through the open cargo hold. The damp, and the smoke.

Thunder cracks overhead, almost completely drowning out the sizzle and whine of another ship settling down. They wait in silence, the Jedi and Satine Kryze, and a minute later the Mand’alor in all his glory comes loping into their ship, yanking off his helmet and holding it in a harsh grip. On his heels is the slighter figure of Bo-Katan, helmet hiding her face but something haggard in the stiff, jerky way she walked.

At first, none of them speak, and then Bo-Katan lurches a little. “Satine.”

Satine, standing between Padawan Kenobi and Padawan Keto sucks in a breath, firming her jaw and her brittle, upright posture, shaking her head ever so slightly. She looks past her sister sightlessly, and then focuses on Fett and Master Ben. Bo-Katan’s gloves creak as she clenches her fist, but she turns her face down, glowering bitterly at the floor.

“We can’t be here long.” Fett states abruptly, his own figure bristling with unrelease tension. “You saw?” He adds, tone harsh and hoarse.

Obi-Wan feels his stomach clench, and clenches his fists too, at Master Ben’s upset sigh. “We did.” Grey-blue eyes stare with unnerving flatness as he speaks, his entire countenance too still, too controlled to speak to Obi-Wan of anything but danger. “Keldabe was burning.”

Leaving Satine Kryze no home to return to.

“ _Osik_.” Fett growls, as another roll of thunder passes them by. The _Mand’alor_ looks to Satine, staring at her with an inexplicable expression of _pain-uncertainty-conviction_. She catches the look and lifts her chin. She is still shaking, but she has stopped shaking from tears and started shaking with anger, as they flew over her home and watched one of rooftops of Keldabe Stronghold collapse into flames. “ _Ni ceta_.” He adds sincerely, sorry for more than he can seem to say. “We will arrange somehwere for you to-“

“I will _not_ go into hiding.” Satine declares, and the _Mand’alor_ grimaces, grinding his jaw but nodding with blunt acceptance, as if he had expected as much.

“You’re not a soldier, Satine!” Bo-Katan snaps, stepping forward. “We’re at _war_ -“

“I’m not a coward, either!” Satine snaps back. “You think I don’t – “

“ _Gev_!” _Stop_ , Fett snaps at the both of them. Padawan Keto’s eyes are wide, watching and shuffling her feet.

“She-“

Fett points a warning hand at Bo-Katan, and her presence flashes hotly in the Force, full of fury and fear over her sister, but she backs down. Fett closes his eyes briefly, one private blink of respite, and then looks back to Master Ben.

“What would you have us do?” The older Jedi asks, voice still too flat but undercut also with guilt, his palms flat on the cargo crate serving as a table between the, leaning slightly forward, every nuance of his posture setting off warning bells in Obi-Wan’s head. He’s not afraid, exactly, but he knows his master can be dangerous. He senses, at the moment, that his master _wants_ to be dangerous.

Obi-Wan curls his fingers into his palms, feeling his nails dig in. It’s difficult to reconcile the Jedi ideal of accepting death, of celebrating the life lived instead of the life lost, and releasing grievances into the Force when he knows the man he is mourning would _want_ vengeance.

Fett works his jaw, dark gaze intense and brimming with leashed violence themselves. And then inexplicably, the hard set of his mouth twitches with a damned sort of smirk.

“Adonai was not a man who left much to chance.” Fett says, respect touched by bitter regret coloring his tone. “In the event of his death, the role and responsibility of the _Jorad’alor_ falls to his heir, until Mandalore can properly elect his successor.”

“Which cannot happen while we are at war with ourselves.” Satine states sharply, bearing the full weight of the responsibility handed down to her without flinching.

“No.” Fett agrees. “It can’t. As such, he drafted a petition to the Jedi Order to protect Satine Kryze until that election, to ensure she survives the transfer of power.” He looks the young woman over.

She stares ahead, not looking at him. It is likely her father tried to prepare her for that possibility, but actually having to live with it is something else entirely.

Obi-Wan glances at his master, just barely grasping the full implications of the burden that now rested on her shoulders. If Satine Kryze died, there would be no one to hold that title until a new election; no one to bridge the gap between Jango Fett, the New Mandalorians, and the Neutral Clans; no one to speak for diplomacy, to answer to the people for their suffering; no one with the authority to hold the _Mand’alor_ accountable, and tell him when he was going too far.

“I will have that request prioritized by the Order.” Master Ben nods, looking down, and Obi-Wan frowns slightly, crossing his arms and turning a furrowed brow on his master in confusion. He had expected his master, on behalf of the Order, to immediately _accept_ that petition.

They had failed to protect Duke Adonai Kryze. Obi-Wan did not want to dishonor his memory by failing to protect his daughter.

“We can do more than that.” Master ben prompts, looking at Fett with focused intent.

Fett grimaces g;ancing aside, like he knows exactly what Master Ben is telling him.

“Master?” Obi-Wan hedges.

The older Jedi glances at his padawan, and then to Fett, gaze steady, brow quirking upright, waiting.

“This isn’t how it should be done, _vod_.” Fett mutters.

“Master?” Obi-Wan demands more firmly, and then turns on Fett. “ _Mand’alor_?” With the same sharp tone.

“ It's the only real way it can be done. Call for reparations.” Master Ben insists. “I can fight by your side. Demand my service as reconciliation for the Jedi Order’s actions at Galidraan. The Council would have no right to refuse, not with the blood of the True Mandalorians on their hands.”

“You can’t be a Jedi and a Mandalorian General.” Fett presses a fist down on the crate between them. “It would remove you from the Order.” He says, and there is no satisfaction in his voice for that.

“Temporarily.” Master Ben tips his head.

“Master!” Obi-Wan bursts out. “You can’t do this!”

His master turns towards him, finally giving him a moment of complete attention. “Obi-Wan… we chose to be _Jetii Manda_ knowing that the Code and the Creed would always be pulling us half on one path, and half on another. But sometimes it does not matter if we are Jedi or _Mando’ad_. We’re human, you and I and sometimes we must make choices not based on who we want to be, but based on what we can live with. Those choices aren’t ever easy – this choice, isn’t easy. But there is more at stake than our reputation, or our honor.”

‘ _The Sith have plans for Mandalore. Lives are at stake. More than we can know._ ’ His master finishes his argument through their bond, full of deep convictions and the shadows of guilt, fear, and hate. Obi-Wan pushes back against those feelings, wishing he could scour their scars from his master’s soul. Obi-Wan glares back at the older Jedi, but nods.

“I have a bad feeling about this.” He mutters, a grudging assent.

His master’s lips twitch. “Thank you, Padawan.” He turns to Fett. “Send the petitions. We’ll contact the Order.”

Fett nods. “We need to move quickly. Fire up your engines. When we have an answer-

“Wait-!” Bo-Katan lurches. “I want to speak with my sister.” She demands.

Satine sucks in a breath, a flush rising to her face, her upset bleeding through. Obi-Wan reaches out, but stops shy of actually touching her. She hasn’t asked for it, and right now it is not his place to intervene. Their father just died. For better or worse, they have to deal with that together.

Fett hesitates, and nods, and then steps up next to Master Ben. “…I’d like to pay my respects. We can stay long enough to bury him.” Sorrow glazes his dark eyes, clashing with anger in a fierce storm around his person. “ _Ka’ra_ as my witness, Adonai _will_ have vengeance.”

Obi-Wan worries his lip and looks away, leaving them to depart first. He glances at the sisters, standing in silence and staring at each other, Satine’s face like porcelain, delicate and unforgiving, and Bo-Katan’s obscured by her helmet, the colors muted by smoke-stain and dust, pitted where the rain burst across it. He collects Padawan Keto, who was hovering uncertainly, and escorts her out.

In the corridor, leaving everyone some privacy, Serra looks up at him. “We’re…staying, then? To protect Miss…Duchess Kryze?”

“The circumstances are not….good.” Obi-Wan tells her honestly. The junior padawan is young, too young, really, for this, but she’s not incapable, and she deserves to understand the situation she has found herself in. “But we are here and we can be of service. Us leaving so others could come…may not be feasible, even if this assignment is more the task of a Knight.”

Death Watch was certainly pressing the advantage that rose from the shock of Duke Kryze’s death, launching simultaneous attacks throughout the system. The hyperlane in and out of the sector was currently dangerously contested territory, and if they weren’t Jedi, they wouldn’t have made it through that first minefield.

Furthermore, if Satine refused to hide, she’d certainly also refuse to leave, and they would not abandon her, not even temporarily.

Obi-Wan regrets now, that Master Gallia assigned them this mission without an additional knight, given that the Jedi weren’t wanted on Thesme in the first place, and that the three Jedi already assigned were, well, who they were.

Padawan Keto blows out a breath, which tosses her fringe. “I was told to study what it meant to be Mandalorian.” She says, putting on a smile that is at odds with her unease in the Force. “I suppose I’m lucky I’ll get to learn firsthand.”

She’s putting on a brave face.

“That’s a good perspective.” Obi-Wan nods, putting one on himself.

~*~

They bury Adonai Kryze under a pyramid of Force-carved stone, in the middle of wasteland of brittle grass and forgotten battles.

His epitaph is written in three parts, by three hands.

| _Cuun oyacyir slanar at Manda'yaim._

_Cuun runi at te Ka'ra._

_A cuun tome'tayl remains ratiin_ |

_Our lives go to Mandalore._

_Our souls to the Stars._

_But our memory remains everlasting_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author: Still not sure i'm happy with how this chapter turned out, but i'm not rewriting it again.


	4. Chapter 4

“Which of us is sad?”

Sky blue eyes bore back at her from under a scrunched sandy-blonde brow, and Anakin Skywalker fidgets on his seat. “I am.” He decides.

Fay lifts a golden brow of her own, sitting in front of him with her elbow propped on her knee and her cheek resting in her palm. His posture, likewise, is not Temple perfect, but in not being distracted by the discomfort of trying to maintain a rigid spine, he is focused on the lesson, and Fay will settle for that.

“Are you?” Fay queries.

His lips purse, an expression he learned directly from his mother, and he blinks softly a few times. “I think so.” He replies. “Maybe. I don’t know.” The boy shrugs, losing certainty under pressure.

Fay smiles gently. “Do you have reason to be sad?”

He nods seriously, a somber pout to his lip. “I miss Master Ti. And Obi-Wan, and Ben, and Quinlan. And mom is busy with Mimi, so I’m not supposed to bother her a lot.”

“Is that why you are sad right now?” Fay inquires. “Or did you feel sad, and in feeling sad, start thinking about why you were sad?”

“Erm….” His tongue sticks out a little, eyes closing, and Fay hopes no passing master gets startled by the sudden sizzling rush of the young, very powerful boy suddenly casting out his senses, and with them his Force presence, with all the grace of a screaming alderaanian goose. He blinks open his eyes, and the grabby, pushy nature of his clumsy focus recedes. “The second one. _You_ were feeling sad.”

“Very good.” Fay praises his astuteness. “It is easy to get caught up in emotion, and to let emotion turn our thoughts against us. That is why we must always be mindful of our feelings, and of what we are feeling. Through the Force, we are connected to the universe, and every living being in it. That means that what we are feeling is not always our own feelings at all. That is why self-reflection is important, and meditation. These are the tools by which we can learn to recognize and separate ourselves from our emotions, so that we can see them for what they really are, and deal with them accordingly.”

“I know!” Anakin insists, and Fay lets her smile turn teasing. “It’s just difficult. And _boring_.” He sulks.

“Practice, little one.” Fay reaches forward and ruffles his hair. “If you can get a handle on the boring parts, I can show you what those with power like us can do. But not until it is safe to teach you.”

“It’s just sitting and thinking. How can it not be safe?” Sky blue eyes offer her a skeptical look.

“It is much more than that, Little Skywalker, and you are very remiss if you believe your thoughts and feelings can’t hurt you. And they can most definitely hurt those around you.” Fay lectures more sternly, so that he understands that this is _important_. The boy bites his lip.

“I had a nightmare.” He confesses, mumbling a little, looking down and curling in on himself. “About bein’ a slave again. I woke up really scared, and Mimi started crying too. I calmed down in a few minutes, but it took _hours_ for mom to settle Mimi. That was my fault.”

“You are not to blame for what causes you pain, Anakin Skywalker.” Fay tells him, reaching forward and grasping his hands, as she has seen his mother do. She draws on the Force, soothing the shadows of hurt away from his soul. “But you are correct in that your emotions affected her deeply. You have immense power within you, and she is very small, and very vulnerable. She doesn’t have the mental resistance or the shielding to protect her mind from outside influence yet.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her.” His lower lip wobbles, and Fay squeezes his fingers a little tighter.

“You were not at fault.” Fay reiterates. “And no real harm was done. You were upset, so she was upset, and it passed. All is well now.”

“I’ll learn better.” Anakin declares, wiping away a sniffle.

Fay smiles again. “That is all we ask of you.” She says, and, because she can, adds; “You are good big brother, Anakin.”

He grins, revealing a missing lower tooth. “Mimi is the best little sister. Jax agrees.”

Fay laughs. “I won’t argue with that. Now, let’s try and center ourselves again, shall we?”

He nods exuberantly, and wriggles, trying to settle back down on his cushion.

Fay’s heart can’t bear to train another padawan, but she dearly had missed having students.

~*~

Shmi is still not certain what to do with all the space in her new living assignment. Two rooms, she believed, would have sufficed, but the quartermaster had scoffed at her insistence, and given her a lodging with three. One room for herself, one for her children, and one for any live-in padawan she might take. It was reasonable, she supposed, but as she did not currently have said padawan, the empty room was like an itch at the back of her mind whenever she passed the door. The boys room had quickly become an explosion of Anakin’s preferred brightly colored cushions, plush monsters, tinkering puzzles and bits of machinery, and Jax’s holographic fish. Shmi had decorated her own room in the same style of drapes and neatly ordered shelves that she had become accustomed to in Shaak Ti’s household, with the addition of Omi’s crib and table, and the little, owl-like nursery droid that monitored the baby while they both slept. The living space, however, is still rather barren. Ben had donated to her a pair of the white-leaved, delicate trees that seemed to flourish in his quarters, as they did not require natural light in any form, and a few of the artworks she had been gifted on Shili adorned the wall, but there was little else that seemed to make an empty space a home.

It would come in time, Shmi supposed.

Right now, the Skywalker household was quiet. Anakin was at a lesson with Fay, Jax in a class for telepaths, and Omi, now four months old, was fast asleep in the sling across Shmi’s chest. Shmi moves and settles herself at the lacquered table, still not certain she liked the round seats that adorned it, but not disliking it enough to have them exchanged so far.

Shmi had been surprised at how much Omi – Mimi, as the boys had taken to calling her – had grown in such a short span. She was plump and rosy cheeked, with a thick matt of dark hair that is most certainly from her father’s side. Anakin hadn’t really had much hair at all till he was nearly a year old. And he had been so small. So unlike his younger sister in every way, and Shmi knew why.

Omi was loud, in every sense. She glowed in the Force, she howled her displeasure and burbled her contentment, and wriggled and kicked at every waking moment, growing so quickly there was something to be noticed every day. Anakin had not been so. He had been a small child, too deprived to grow well, quick to be quiet and still. He had learned pain and fear in infancy – not, Shmi knows now, necessarily in his own right, but through her, and through the Force that flowed through them both. Anakin, from the day he came into this world, had been lucky to survive, and Shmi had prayed every day to Ar-Amu and Ekkreth for him. Omi, in comparison, could not do anything but thrive. She was safe, well-fed and knew only of love, from her brothers’ blazing exuberance, to Shmi’s own encompassing care, to Obi-Wan’s bright delight and Ben’s quiet devotion and even Tholme’s confused pleasure and joy.

At some point, really, Tholme should learn to look less surprised every time Shmi placed his daughter in his arms, and less skittish. He cared for her, but Shmi sensed that the concept and idea of her, - not as she was in the moment, but as she would be as a whole and complete independent being - was still too much for a man who so jadedly guarded his own heart.

A call lights her comm, and Shmi looks up from her daughters squished, sleeping face and smiles upon answering.

“Shaak.” Shmi says warmly, relieved to see her former master even if only in poor-quality holo. Even with the communications array the Jedi had been permitted to set up, communication with Dathomir was spotty and infrequent, and Shmi missed the other woman dearly. Shaak Ti had left for the Nightsister’s planet three months ago, having delayed already for Shmi’s sake, for which the mother was grateful.

Still, Shmi was starting to feel a little abandoned. Shaak Ti had gone to Dathomir three months ago, Ben and Obi-Wan had gone to Mandalore two months ago, and none of them had yet returned. The rest of her companions – Tholme, Dahvo, and Luminara Unduli – were also frequently in and out of Temple on assignment. Sometimes, Shmi felt lonely and wished they were here. Other times, she was beginning to feel restless, and wish she were out there.

Shmi is content in the Temple, and will likely never commit as much time in the field as her peers, devoted to learning, teaching, and her duties to the Council of Reassignment as she is, but she does miss the mission work. She enjoys it, feels loyalty and respect for its purpose, and finds deeper meaning and surety within herself to do it. She had never imagined such a grand and unreachable thing for herself – being a Jedi Knight – but now… perhaps there are other paths which would have suited her, but now, _this one_ is hers, and she embraces it fully.

“ _Shmi_.” Shaak Ti smiles, the holo-comm crackling with weak signal. “ _Mimi_.” She addresses the sleeping infant, who does not stir. “ _How are you_?”

“Well, if perhaps lonely.” Shmi admits freely. “Though I must tell you that four days ago the entire Temple woke to a pink haze.”

“ _What_?” Shaak Ti’s silver eyes widen, hand lifting to her chin in intrigue.

“Nearly the exact color of your skin.” Shmi smiles in remembered delight – something she had noticed once she stopped sneezing. “One of the plants which populates a very great many of the garden pots throughout the temple is apparently a flowering thorn with a very specific life cycle. It pollenated quite robustly in the night, and the atmospherics were not equipped to filter it outside of the Room of a Thousand Fountains.”

“ _Oh dear_.” Shaak laughs. “ _Why am I ever not present for such things_?”

“The boys made snow-mynocks in the pollen, and the younglings were quite delighted when they realized it would cling to their clothing, and that if they ran around in the settled dust enough, it would cloud again.” Shmi informs her with good humor. “The masters were not nearly so delighted. Master Windu took one walk-about, cursed Master Jinn unto his grandmaster’s grandmaster to anyone who might listen, much to Master Yoda and Fay’s delight, and abruptly assigned himself to a field mission.”

Shaak Ti giggles, turning her face away into the palm of one hand, as it was impolite to laugh at her colleagues in such a manner, but unable to resist.

“The Agricorps made a day-lecture of it.” Shmi adds. “The incident sparked quite an interest in botony, though I am not certain that interest is in earnest or in self-defense.”

 _“I can imagine_.” Shaak Ti replies, eyes dancing with mirth. Shmi feels her own grin curl, and teases her fingers over her daughters hair, feeling refreshed for the companionship.

“How is your assignment on Dathomir?” Shmi inquires, wanting news herself.

“ _Ah, well_ ….”

~*~

“You’re scowling.”

Two bright, cuttingly sharp gazes glance up, one violet and the other orange, and if Siri weren’t inured by now, she’d flinch. Abruptly, their scowls turn into smooth, indescipherable masks, a personal check on how much they intend to reveal, and then Master Adi’s brow goes up, recognizing Siri as the speaker, and Knight Micoda’s pinches slightly in consternation.

He’s always giving Siri that look, and she doesn’t like it.

The lithe blonde padawan crossed her arms and lifts both sharp brows pointedly. “Is there a _problem_?” She inquires, tone sharp. They don’t mind its sharpness. They never do.

To be fair, their own tempers and tongues - though better disciplined than her own, she admits freely – could cut to the bone. Hers is just naturally prickly.

“Master Cray and Knight Wor-Rusp have failed to check in.” Knight Micoda finally answers, when Siri’s impatient glare wears through. Master Gallia glances between her assistant and her padawan, and then she decidedly chooses not to interfere.

Siri stops glaring and frowns at the floor, trying to recall the names and the mission reports. She doesn’t have her Master’s durasteel trap of a memory – yet – but she is getting very good at this. “They were… investigating reports of large-scale theft, right?” Siri focuses her mind, trying to will the details into the forefront of her thoughts, but she’s not sure she even knew anything more than the basic information to begin with. “Shipyards. Possible corporate sabotage, right?”

The theft had been large scale, and it hadn’t just been ships – some of the stolen vessels had been manned, which made their theft kidnapping as well.

Master Adi offers a small, proud nod, pleased with her padawan, and Siri feels warmth settle in her chest, boosting her confidence.

“The Golden Nyss Shipyards.” Master Adi confirms. “They were dispatched days ago, but we haven’t received a status update since they initially arrived in the system.”

There’s tension in her master’s hair-pods, a faint crease at the pinched edge of her mouth that Siri has learned to recognize. Knight Micoda too is staring at the wall in consideration, a faint frown on his brown face.

Shipyard theft happened all the time. Kidnapping too. Corporate espionage and sabotage part and parcel of any business that crossed system borders.

But they weren’t anything a seasoned Knight and Master couldn’t handle.

So if Master Cray and Knight Wor-Rusp were in trouble, there was definitely something more at play.

 _I’ve got a bad feeling about this_ , Siri thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
> 
> Author: For those of you who missed it in this chapter, we have had a little time skip of 2 months between the events of the last chapter and the events of this one.


	5. Chapter 5

There is a hard-boned, _beskar_ -strong grip on his left hand, and a firm, cool grip on the other. Obi-Wan squeezes Satine’s hand back just as tightly, and mentally thanks Padawan Orikhid for the older chagrian padawans very Jedi, steadfast support and reassurance.

Together, all three of them stop breathing, holding themselves as still as living beings can be, Obi-Wan projecting, as best he was able, a sense of absence, hardening around them the idea that there was _nothing-to-see_ , _no-one-to-find_.

One of the _Kyr’stad_ Mando’s searching the vessel they were stowed away on stops right above Obi-Wan’s head, the boot tread inches from his face. He can hear the echoes of an argument between the ships captain and the head of the Death Watch’s ‘Security Patrol’.

There were ship-traps like these popping up on all the lesser used trade lanes, where support from the defense fleet was thin on the ground, most of the resources going to protecting main shipping lanes and planetary defenses, and supporting the _Mand’alor’s_ warfronts. _Kyr'stad_ bullying traders and civilians alike. Supposedly, they wouldn’t harm anyone who wasn’t actively supporting “the enemy”. Not that they seemed to require much proof, or provide any account on the matter after the fact. Crimes against the Death Watch could as simple as having the wrong name.

Which is why they were hiding on a ship captained by a man whose family name was Goraan. It was the second most common surname in the entire Mandalorian Sector, right after Vaird.

Obi-Wan regrets having been forced to abandon the _Lighthawk_ , but the ship had been too remarkable a target, the paint job not exactly subtle, and Satine Kryze was currently the second most wanted person in the Sector.

Obi-Wan wasn’t entirely sure who, exactly, was all trying to kill her. Death Watch was a given, possibly the Sith too, but there were other rivals who seemed to be throwing their own bounties into the mix as well, political opponents of either her position or her philosophy, and at least one blood feud against Clan Kryze – which, he thinks, Satine could have _warned_ him about, when someone out of the throng had suddenly, without warning or reason, saw her face and became hostile.

But Satine did not appear to have any interest in making his duty easy. She had been insistent in carrying out her father’s work – which he respected, really. But it had involved jumping the system back to Thesme only to find the entire conference dissolved, Adonai’s work in shambles. The neighboring sectors would not get involved, not militarily and not through restrictive action. Half of the representatives had already left, and few of those that remained would even speak with her. They’re second return to Mandalore was filled with tense, bitter silence. The shock and grief of Satine’s loss had quickly turned to anger, and stayed there.

They’d rendezvoused back in the wastes beyond Keldabe, where they’d buried Duke Kryze, and the Council’s decision had come back as a tightly worded set of parameters that had Master Gallia’s displeasure in every precisely crafted phrase.

But Master Ben and Jango Fett had had an Idiot’s Array in their back pocket for this – there were two Jedi Padawans in the Mandalore System already; the two survivors of the _Kyr’stad_ attack on the Medical Research Station, kept safe by Fett and Duke Kryze until they could be safely returned to the Jedi Order.

Given the state of affairs, that return had had yet to happen.

In spite of the difficulty of the assignment, the Council had agreed to allow Padawan Kenobi and Padawan Orikhid to serve as Duchess Satine Kryze’s protective detail through this crisis. Padawan Orikhid was a twenty-year old chagrian with solid swordsmanship and eight years experience, and Padawan Kenobi was, in a turn of phrase, uniquely skilled. Together, it was believed they would be up to the task. Master Rancisis had also pointed out that just a few years ago, assigning a senior padawan or two to such a mission would not have been out of the ordinary.

In comparison to the resistance in that matter, Master Yaddle’s acceptance of Jango Fett’s demand for reconciliation had been downright sanguine. In contrast, the contract negotiated between them for Master Ben’s term of service had been a nightmare in the making, and Obi-Wan was glad his involvement in the affair boiled down to nothing more than being able to watch Jango Fett try and glare down _Yaddle_ , of all beings in the galaxy.

Things had moved very quickly after that. The attacks and fires in Keldabe had given way to riots and panic and confused bloodshed, for near every Mandalorian was a warrior, and today they were at war with each other, and Fett had needed to go, and where he went, Ben was to go with him.

By the Council’s order, Padawan Keto was still in Master Ben’s charge, but forbidden from committing any action other than those absolutely necessary to preserve her own safety. She was not to be involved in the conflict, until she and Padawan Casra - the other Jedi refugee, who was a junior padawan only a year older than Keto herself - could be fetched by a Jedi Master or the conflict was resolved.

Bo-Katan and Satine had argued about duty and responsibility and family, and that argument had been – vicious. For the both of them. In the end, Bo-Katan had gone with Fett. Satine had told her to, but at the same time, Obi-Wan thinks she had hated her sister a little for obeying.

Obi-Wan and Satine had departed Mandalore for Mandallia, where they were to meet up with Padawan Orikhid, and after that to Kalevala – well, roundabout to Kalevala – where Satine could mourn with what remained of her Clan, and where her House could swear fealty to her, as her father’s successor.

Not all who should have been there, were, Satine tells him after. She doesn’t even let him be angry on her behalf – and he shouldn’t, as a Jedi, be angry for such a thing, but well, as a friend, as a Mandalorian, he is – “How can I expect them to have the same faith in me as they had in my father?” She tells him, shaking her head. “I am not my father.”

She had traded her blue and lavender skirts for dark, mourning purple, and spent the next few days helping those who asked paint that color onto their armor.

Some of those who came to her during mourning were not, however, her father’s _vod_. Some were envoy of the New Mandalorian faction, acquaintances of Satine’s, joined by some of their acquaintances. Some she was glad to see, others… pacifism did not preclude cruelty.

Implying that Duke Kryze was a violent man who earned his violent end was neither tactful nor politically astute. Satine’s expression had been polished beyond all scrutiny, but her presence in the Force had been a torn roil of inner conflict – swelling anger, outrage and pride against caution and consideration, a tug of war between defending her father, condemning the speaker, or ingratiating herself with a not inconsiderable political ally.

And the eyes of those under her House had been watching.

Obi-Wan had interceded then, saving her from the choice and the fallout whether she wanted him to or not. “One would think a pacifist would believe that no one deserved such a violent end, or do I misunderstand the New Mandalorian philosophy?”

They did not appear to have expected nor enjoyed that.

Satine and her escort were not on Kalevala more than four days before the first attempt on her life was made. House Kryze came to her defense, as was natural, but Satine hated that people would kill and die for her, and not long after came the second attempt, and they fled.

She could not stop her people from being what and who they were, especially with her father’s loss so raw, but she swore Obi-Wan and Orikhid to promise her: _No killing_.

They’d tried to find safe haven, seeking out Sha’me Betoya, her dancing tutor who would have been in Kaldabe the day it was attacked but should have gotten out, but they were found before they arrived at the planned meeting place, and forced to run again. They had been running a lot.

It was difficult, this war. Anyone could be a friend, anyone could be the enemy. Death Watch wasn’t just a dissident faction – it was an ideology, and a pervasive one for a people whose culture has been curbed by the galaxy at large, and whose traditions were deeply ingrained and yet fading away, in the face of a New Mandalorian movement that was radical in the extreme. There was no true difference between soldier and civilian, not here.

The people they passed on platforms, in the streets, in the skies, they didn’t even have to be sworn to the Death Watch themselves. All they had to be were sympathizers. Anyone could give them away, tell the Death Watch where they’d been seen, which way they’d been going.

Hence ditching his very precious, very flashy ship. Hopefully, Lin Betoya got his message, and his ship would be taken care of. He’d like it back some day.

Obi-Wan felt that this mission was making him paranoid. More paranoid. Satine assured him he was, as he insisted upon more and more stringent methods to avoid detection. Padawan Orikhid was too polite to agree.

Yet here they were, under the grating in the cargo hold of a second-hand trade vessel, shuttled by the kinsman of a clan under the House of one of Fett’s confidant’s, trying to get back to Mandalore, four inches beneath the boots of a heavily armed _Kyr’stad_ thug.

Obi-Wan had been so succeful that no one had correctly identified Satine Kryze in a week.

Death Watch was still searching for her, rigorously, but they had also proclaimed her to be dead, and Satine could not let that stand, not with the turmoil it would cause her people, her position valuable and precarious.

The air gap was cramped, dark, and currently damp with the breathing and cold sweat of three very stressed individuals. If he blinked, Obi-Wan could imagine the moist atmosphere of Dathomir, and it took a lot of effort not to cave to the urge to try and Shadow-Walk to safety.

They were on a ship.

In space.

Shadow-Walking in space would result in a _swift and horrible death_.

Obi-Wan feels abruptly guilty at being irritated with the ruffled masters who chided him not to use such abilities so frivolously in the Temple. It greatly increased his skill, but also eroded the resistance and necessary intent required to do, and right now that was not in his favor.

The _Kyr’stad_ mando above his shifts and turns, and the captain comes through with the mando in charge of this little hold-up.

“This is the cargo?”

“I assumed you could read the manifest.” Captain Goraan replies blithely, an older mando who wore his chest plates out of habit, under a thick spacers coat.

A crate pops open with a hiss, and Satine closes her eyes, expression pinching. What happens next is pointless and predictable, the crate being kicked over, the contents – harvest seeds – being scattered hopelessly in the thousands, pepping over the three hidden figures beneath the floor. The captain doesn’t even swear.

“You done?” He inquires. “I have three more of those.”

Annoyed and churlish, the Kyr’stad Mando slaps the manifest into Captain Goraan’s chest and stalks off the ship, back into his own. His comrades follows, and Obi-Wan doesn’t breathe until the airlock seals shut behind them.

“I very much dislike those people.” Padawan Orikhid whispers dissatisfactorily, and it is such a Jedi thing to say that Obi-Wan huffs out a chuckle.

“That’s not how I would have put it.” Satine mutters, while Captain Goraan chucks the manifest against the wall in ire and swears over his spilled seeds, now that it is safe to do so.

“Young lady.” Padawan Orikhid sighs, no doubt concerned with propriety, her being a duchess and all, and Obi-Wan wheezes out another _slightly_ hysterical laugh. Satine makes a hard sound in her throat, irritated, and the grate above them is finally lifted. Captain Goraan’s grizzly face looks over the three of them before reaching down a hand to help Satine out.

“All right you three, come on out of there.” He rumbles.

“Thank you.” Satine holds his arm for a moment longer.

The captain chuffs. “No need. I need the extra hands if I want to get even half of this back in the crate.”

Satine’s expression falters, turning slightly petulant. Obi-Wan heaves himself out of the narrow space, groaning as his muscles twinge and protest as he is finally able to stretch, and he assists Orikhid out as well, the chagrian having no such problems, despite being both taller and broader than Obi-Wan. Chagrian physiology at work.

Obi-Wan turns to the captain, pulling off his bucket. “Allow me.” He offers, plucking a seed off his clothes and getting a sense of it through the Force. “I think I can do you much better than half.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: .......  
> ......  
> ............  
> I spent a good portion of my writing time today making notes and just trying to piece together a rough concept of the course of this arc and i have no idea what possessed me to put the Yinchorri Uprising and the Mandalore Civil Wars side by side. Well, i do, but holy hell is it a lot to process. And that's taking into account that i am only borrowing the loosest of frameworks from existing canon/legends. The politics, the players, the conflicts....ajaflafigafa;ohkdfhd;harjkvf. I don't think any other arc in this series has required anywhere near so much prep on my part, so i am hoping this works out.
> 
> on the names thing:  
> Goraan - from _Goran_ : Blacksmith, metalworker.  
> Vaird - from _Verd_ : soldier, warrior.  
> Essentially, those names are like having the last name Smith, or Miller. Everybody English/American knows someone who is a Smith or a Miller.
> 
> I really hope this isn't a mess.


	6. Chapter 6

“Where-“

He doesn’t even have to finish his sentence, and he’s being pointed onward with blunt irreverence. Apparently, there is just something they can see in his face or his stalk when he is looking for Ben Naasade that means he need say no more, they get the message.

Fett nods his recognition and moves on, and like a ripple across a stream, he’s pointed this way, given a head nod that way, vaguely shrugged in one direction, a door held for him in the next.

This base is set below the surface of a near-airless moon of Bonogal, a gas giant towards the outer edge of the Mandalore System, providing a recovery point for his people fighting in the nearby Concord Dawn system. It’s a warren of tunnels and chambers and bunkers that date back as far as the First Mandalorian Expansion, never truly abandoned or left neglected. It also served as a decent midway point between the battlefront around Concord Dawn and the destabilizing situation on Mandalore.

But being stuck in between is killing Fett.

He misses Kryze. _Ka’re_ , but to his bones he misses Kryze, his mourning for the man a bitter seed in his chest. He doesn’t know how he held Mandalore together, when the Clans seem irreconcilable and contrary and scattered, when everyone’s loyalty to anyone else is constantly called into question.

Fett hadn’t understood the burden the man had borne for him. He’d succored so deeply the wound that Galidraan and the massacre of the True Mandalorian’s had cast upon his own soul that he hadn’t realized what it had done to his people.

But Adonai had lived with it, and held it all together out of sheer fucking determination and necessity.

And now Adonai was gone, and in his place Jango had a Jedi Warrior blatantly straying away from the path of his oaths, a brittle teenaged commander with more ferocity than field experience, and a Duchess-in-waiting who had just lost her father and refused to fear for her own life.

It had been generations since Mandalorians had fought a real war on this scale. His generals and commanders, no matter how experienced and well versed, simply didn’t yet quite grasp the full scope of the fight they had on their hands. Their training focused on honing themselves into the perfect warrior, mentally and physically, but that was not the same as being a good leader of men. In many cases, it was the opposite. They didn't know how to fight as a unit. Or as an army.

They may all be Mandalorans, all these soldiers around him, but the creed alone wasn’t enough. The best of Mandalore was its loyalty, and none of them, no matter true they were to their vows, trusted much of each other right now.

Jango saw it in every battleline shattered, in every plan blown apart. It wasn’t even sabotage or belligerence - in most cases. Just a lack of cohesion, an absence of trust and faith in their fellows. In their leaders. In him.

And it was worse since Adonai died.

Death Watch might lose, but that didn’t mean the rest of them would win.

Jango finds Ben sitting in a meditative pose on a pile of shipping crates; legs crossed, palms upturned on his knees, spine perfectly straight. He’d given over his Jedi tunics for a black bodysuit and a full kit of armor, the Jedi Order sigil on his shoulder replaced with Jango’s black and gold mythosaur skull emblem. The additional armor pieces were flat black, save for the protective tasset around his waist and thighs, which was a dull red under the black plates, and the empty ammo belt, which was plastoid and factory white. The man refused to carry a blaster, but had no problem packing blasting charges around his stomach.

 _You can take the man away from the Jetiise, but you can’t take the Jeti out of the man_. Still, Jango is impressed he can even get in that position while in a full kit. Jango hopes Ben thanked the armorer. Ben would even look serene, if it weren’t for the thunderous scowl on his face, watching a nearby squad attempt training drills when they were a melting pot mix of a dozen Clans from half a dozen Houses.

“You do _not_ look peaceful.” Jango comments dryly.

Blue-grey eyes flick down towards him. “ _Valsh shu’shuk_.” He retorts tartly. _They’re a disaster_. Jango cringes at the declaration, grudgingly inclined to agree. “Cody and Rex would never-“ Ben cuts himself off, teeth clicking shut, and Jango crosses his arms, resisting the urge to growl. He would really like to fucking know who in the seventh level of Corellian hell was _Cody_.

But he doesn’t demand. Instead, he grinds his jaw and remarks; “You _could_ intervene.” Jango points out. “If you think you could do better.” He adds, a challenge.

Ben gives him a thrillingly flat, unimpressed look. Jango lifts a brow, feeling some of the frustration, some of the tension, roll out of his shoulders.

“Half of them aren’t yet convinced that it wouldn’t be better to shoot me.” He says drolly. “It would be an accident, of course.”

Jango chuffs, and he can feel the scrutiny they are under now, itching at the back of his neck. Not a warning, just an awareness. His people are watching.

Jango tilts his head, studying the man sitting on the perch above him, and, struck with the inspiration, pulls his blaster and shoots the bastard who was probably his closest friend.

A flash of light, an irritated tisk, and Ben shakes out one hand, the palm of his glove smoking slightly, having deflected the bolt - seemingly – with his hand. In actuality, with the Force.

There is a decided hush of people _not_ running drills behind him.

“You could _not_ do that.” Ben huffs irritably, finally relaxing his limbs and making the leap down from his perch.

Jango smirks, holstering his blaster. “Proving a point.” He says easily. Ben arches a disapproving brow. “Shooting you is a waste of plasma.” He adds, changing the pitch of his voice to carry farther.

He knows his people are uneasy with the Jedi in their midst. Half because he is a Jedi. Half because his name is Naasade, and he wears his armor well.

He had hoped that the last two months would ease that unseen tension around him, that apprehension and hostility, that his skill in battle and his competence and strategy in the war room would garner him a little less suspicion, at least.

Apparently not.

So they’ll have to take a more direct approach. Jango will force his people to adapt, if he must.

“Master Naasade!” A shrill, sharp cry, and then a bolt of teal and black heralds the arrival – and dismay – of Padawan Casra, with the little nautolan’s big liquid-dark eyes and an over-stuffed satchel of bacta-patches, anti-sep injections, flesh-plast, and medics knew what else. She turns wide, distressed eyes on Jango. “Master _Fett_!” She decries, voice all soft hurt and blinking reproach, and it makes his soul wither up in his chest, to be called Master Fett by a doe-eyed baby _jetii_.

“I’m fine.”

“He’s _fine_.” The _Mand’alor_ hurries out with, shrinking back from her big, sad look as she fussed over the hand, forcing the Jedi master to remove his glove and show her his _completely unharmed_ palm.

All those jaded warriors behind him were so consumed by the idea that Ben Nasaade, Jedi Master was an enemy in their midst, and they utterly failed to realize that complete devastation was right there in the hands of one tiny padawan. It was the young ones that were truly dangerous.

Fett had put _this one_ in Ronin Murr’s care, tiny and feverish after being fished out of a drifting escape-pod, in shock from something only Jedi really understood, and within weeks the girl had had seemingly unfettered access to anything and everything within the commander’s jurisdiction – _including_ Fett’s personal ship, apparently – and no one and nothing was allowed to so much as breathe wrong in her direction.

That she had a very Jedi-like disinterest in weaponry and had been taken in among the medic’s and doctors had been an utter relief, if not for the fact that she had reappeared armed with needles and an ‘ _I’ll do my best, it’s for your own good’_ attitude. And the big sad eyes.

“Master Fett.” _Ka’re, make her stop_. “Master Fett.” She looks up at him, very somber and sincere. “Please _do not ever_ do that again.”

Fett nods once, a sharp, jerky motion, and she smiles sweetly, bows, and trots off. Ben looks after her fondly, and Jango resists the urge to hit the man and tell him _don’t encourage that_.

First it was Obi-Wan Kenobi, hopeless, too trusting, and just the right brand of defiant and loyal. Then Casra maybe-possibly-soon-to-be-Murr. Now there’s also a black-haired, green eyed, shaken little thing with fight in every inch of her body trailing after Bo-Katan, watching all of them with the slow resurgence of determination rising in her gaze. Jango worries about that.

Jango does not have the time or attention to spare to be worrying about that.

He shakes his head and glances at Ben, who tucks his glove back on with prim coruscanti fussiness in every minute aspect of the act.

Jango scowls in irritation, and blue-grey eyes glance eyes, taking in his attention with a look of mild expectation. Jango scowls harder. “Stop that.” He snaps. “Go to teach them what the fuck they need to learn.” He orders, shoving the cinnamon-haired man towards the devolving training drills.

“Is that all you sought me out for?” Ben inquires, taking only a half step in that direction, rather unmoved by the force of Fett’s push. Fett’s not entirely surprised. Unlike his stringy still-growing padawan, underneath that kit of armor, Ben Naasade is solid.

“Have you been in contact?” Jango asks. It hadn’t been urgent, seeking out Ben. Jango had just wanted to see someone who wasn’t expecting miracles out of him for one fucking minute, and who didn’t make him question whether his authority meant he ought to kick someone’s ass or forgive them for being fucking stupid. Who didn’t make him question his authority at all.

“I was working on it.” Ben glances up at his perch on the crates above them, lifting one hand to briefly graze his temple. “My sense of him was… blurry. I think they were in hyperspace. If that is the case, they should be reaching Mandalore soon.”

“If they don’t get into trouble.” Jango mutters.

“ _Vod_.” Ben sighs. “You aren’t supposed to _say_ it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: I'll try my best to make it easy to remember who is who on all the lesser known characters.
> 
> Ben's armor: A tasset is like a protective battle skirt, hard plates sewn on flexible material to protect the hips/groin/thigh area while allowing flexibility, as opposed to rigid armor. Rex wears something like one on occasion in the clone wars.


	7. Chapter 7

Master Sinube blinks slowly, clarifying his thoughts before focusing on the young bothan all but bristling with his impatience. Bristling with it, Master Sinube notes approvingly, but not yet harassing his poor elderly master with it. Holding his tongue and waiting to be addressed. _Progress_ , at last.

“What do you think, Padawan?” Sinube inquires. Ral Sei'lar blinks, the black furred journeyman-padawan narrowing his green eyes and snorting softly. Eight minutes gone by, waiting for Sinube to mull over the information they had just been given – followed by a lingering, amiable chat between old friends which had likely seemed incredibly boring the younger jedi, and now, _finally_ , his master wanted his opinion.

So impatient and rash.

“The distress call indicates an attack on Mayvitch Seven. If Judicial suspect something more than piracy and wants our aid, we should provide it.”

“Hmmm.” Sinube hums, blinks slowly, and nods. “Most certainly.” He agrees. “What else?”

“What else?” Ral questions back, nearing a scowl.

“What else?” Sinube repeats, and waits, while his padawan fumes and thinks. Goodness, is that not exhausting? The frustration that comes with impatience? His padawan is brilliant, but he has much to unlearn if he wants to be _more_ than that.

“Open an investigation.” Ral says slowly, obviously, and irritated that he has to say it aloud at all. Surely it was implied?

“Hmmm.” Sinube nods. “How so?”

His padawan is no longer nearing a scowl. He is gritting his teeth. Ral is taking so very long to reach any proper conclusion, and yet he considers his _master_ far too slow.

“Send someone.” Ral grinds out.

“Should we?” Sinube inquires.

“Of course.”

“Hmmm.” Sinube hums, and shakes his head. “Have you considered, perhaps, that someone might already be there?” Sinube prompts. Ral scowls.

“Judicial just told you that they are out of contact. Aside from that one distress call, they cannot get ahold of their people.”

“Quite clearly.” Master Sinube nods, blinking, folding one hand over the other and rising from his seat, looking to his padawan expectantly. Ral looks back, and Sinube waits with infinite patience. One must be patient with the young.

“….Do _we_ have contacts in the Chalenor System?” Ral finally inquires.

“We should find out, shouldn’t we?” Sinube nods approvingly. “Come, let’s pay a visit to Master Gallia, shall we?”

The younger jedi heaves to his feet, swishing his tail. “Shouldn’t we see Master Rancisis? I thought his seat presided over mission alottments?”

Sinube clucks, amused, and shuffles out of his office and into the corridors. “Master Rancisis is the one who approves them, but that is only because Master Gallia stubbornly refuses to take the seat awaiting her on the Council. Master Rancisis has been delegating more and more of those duties to her for years. I do believe she’s afraid he’ll hand them off and retire if she actually takes over in title as well.” He muses, scratching at his chin.

“If he’s too old-“ Ral cuts himself off abruptly, apparently recalling the little thing known as _tact_. Sinube hums, and glances up at the slightly taller bothan, brows arched in censure.

“Master Sinube.” The cosian master looks towards the address, giving his padawan a chance to look down and absorb yet another lesson on self-discipline and respect – and more importantly, about jumping to conclusions when he should instead make sure he’s asking the right questions.

“Master Sinube.” Padawan Tachi greets again, once at a more polite speaking distance, and bows, her short nerf-tail flipping when she snaps back up.

“Padawan Tachi, I was just on my way to see your master.” Master Sinube greets the teenager.

“She sent me to find you.” Padawan Tachi addresses immediately. “We were wondering if you or Judicial might have heard anything coming out of the Yinchorri or Chalenor Systems?”

Sinube and Ral share a glance, and both look back to the younger padawan with troubled focus.

“My dear, in point of fact we have.”

~*~

Ben can feel the hostility and distrust in the air rise as he walks towards the training group, sighs by the time he’s ten yards from them, turns around and walks back to Jango, who is giving him a dark, dirty look for apparently backing out.

“Your data-padd, if you would.” Ben entreats, smiling apologetically.

Fett hands it over, brows pinched, but willing to humor him. Ben takes the padd with grace, checks to see that it is still synced with Jango’s comm-code, and thanks him before walking back towards the training area. Just – not too close, yet.

He can tell Jango wants to watch, interested in how exactly Ben will handle his unruly soldiers, but he’s too busy for the indulgence, and staring at Ben while he fusses over a data-padd is an irritating experience, no doubt. He leaves.

Ben finds and then pulls up the available rosters, wincing at Jango’s organizational skills. It doesn’t take him long to find a few names he recognizes, as he was hoping to, and, with a private little smirk, he sends out a few summons using Jango’s comm-code, ordering them to report to Naasade in Bunker 3.

He doesn’t think they would actually obey had the request come from Ben himself. A little subterfuge is simply….expedient.

Rav Bralor and Vhonte Tervho arrive together. Rav of Clan and House Bralor, Vhonte of Clan Tervho, House Bralor, both in grey bodysuits with black-accented red armor, blue capes trailing from their shoulders. Rav Bralor is a few inches taller than her younger counterpart, but it’s the white fur trimming Vhonte’s boots, and the thin red braids that snake out of the younger womans helmet that makes it simpler to tell them apart. That, and Rav has an unbothered marching stroll, whereas Vhonte stalks, more pride and dissatisfaction in her movement than Rav’s casual disrespect.

Ben doesn’t mind. They don’t know him and there are a great many reasons why they don’t like him. But he knows _of_ them.

And of Kal Skirata, who enters from a different passageway and has to come down a metal stair from an upper landing in the bunker. At first glance he cuts a short and unassuming figure, a brown body with black sleeves, denoting valor and justice, but the armor over the brown kit in better light reveals itself to be sand gold, an ode to vengeance.

Ben tucks the datapadd into the back of his belt with satisfaction and folds his hands behind his back, waiting with patience as each of them in turn takes a pause to assess his figure before approaching those last few yards; Rav Bralor and Kal Skirata taking another moment to greet each other with a brief clasp of arms – old friends.

Not one of the three knows why they are here, nor do they know that Ben already trusts and respects them, and knows much of what they are capable of, for all that they have never properly met in any lifetime.

But that is Ben’s secret to keep. In another lifetime, these three were among the one hundred known as the _Cuy’val Dar_ , those individuals hand picked by Jango Fett to train to the Clone Troopers into the best army the galaxy would ever see. These three were also among those few who had actually treated the Clones as human beings, had raised them as much as trained them, and taught them how to be more than an army, how to be a _people_. They had passed down their heritage as well as their skills. That is a gift they were never thanked for, and that Ben could never thank them enough for. But it would be awkward, he supposed, to thank them now for something they would never have the chance do. It certainly would not endear him to them.

Kal Skirata removes his bucket, perhaps more out of habit than trust, tucks it under his arm, and casts a critical gaze across the paint on Ben’s armor, the swirling implication of a storm, the burning colors of the two suns, and Fett’s sigil on his shoulder. Like Ben himself, the character his armor displays allows for much to be interpreted, but very little actually told. Ben smiles pleasantly, one of his most Jedi-like, meaningless expressions, unreadable beyond its politeness.

The older mans light blue eyes darken with distrust and irritation, the habitual response of any Mandalorian to everything he does that seems too Jedi-like, and that only amuses Ben more.

“To be blunt,” He starts with, not bothering with introductions. “I need your help.”

Bralor crosses her arms, unimpressed, and Tervho offers a short, derisive snort. Skirata’s expression just hardens. Ben smirks, and lifts his gaze over their shoulders, to the training group behind them.

“To be quite a bit more so – _they_ desperately need help.” He says. Even as they glance over, one mando knocks into their teammate and then shoves back at them, irritated, and their distraction starts the eventual dissolution of their formation, and the drill ends in failure. “And it will take time we do not have to get them to accept it from me.” He adds. “Or at least, myself alone.”

“And how did we offend Fett that he picked _us_ to babysit his pet _jetii_?” Tervho mutters, and Ben can feel her disgust for his being like a sour damp against his skin.

Ben takes a breath, presses his lips together, and reminds himself that without these three people, Cody and Rex and all of the rest of them would not have been who they were. Would not have had the chance to be, without their influence to combat the Kaminoan’s rigid, merciless conformity and the Sith’s dark intentions.

“ _I_ chose you.” Ben snaps out, tone abruptly cold and cutting. “But if my assessment of your capabilities is flawed and you aren’t up to the task, Vohnte Tervho, then admit it and feel free to leave. I’m sure you have something more worthwhile to do.”

Her fists clench, gloves creaking, angry enough to hit him, proud enough to want to refuse him, but smart enough to realize that she’ll insult herself – and with herself, her Clan and her House, for they are the ones who raised and trained her - if she does. Ben had quite neatly outmaneuvered her in a battlefield she really hadn’t been prepared to enter. Words ans wit were _his_ domain.

Ral Bralor drums her fingers along her utility belt, feeling thoughtful, and some combination of surprised and amused. Ah. Ben had gotten aggressive. Aggression, Mandalorians were comfortable with.

But they had not, perhaps, expected it from him. He may wear armor and stand at Fett’s shoulder, but he has still presented himself to them with his usual Jedi placidity. Off the battlefield, at least, but few of them have worked closely enough with Fett to have seen Ben in battle.

“Well?” Ben demands, looking to all three of them for an answer.

“What exactly do you think we can fix?” Skirata asks bluntly, no nonsense and ready to get over with this already.

“For a start, discipline and cohesion.” Ben looks to him, blue-grey eyes hard and certain. “We need to turn this mess into functional, integrated units.”

“We’ve _been_ saying we should form them by clan-“

“And you’ve been denied because that isn’t good enough.” Ben cuts Bralor off, looking to her. He’s seen those suggestions, and shot down all of them in the War Room. It did not make him many friends. “Each clan hones a different skillset. We need units to be versatile and adaptive, not caught in a trap because the situation in the field changed around them and they are to a man ill equipped to deal with it.”

“Do you know how many of the clans absolutely loathe each other? Hells, some of them don’t even get along that are under the same House.” Tervho remarks snidely. “How the fuck do you expect to sort that?”

Ben’s brow pinches. There were batches who hadn’t gotten along, some squadrons, even entire battalions, that had seen each other as rivals. But those were shallow grudges, nothing like the generations long feuds ingrained in Clan heritages.

“ _Wayii_.” _Good grief_. Ben mutters, not really surprised. Mandalorian’s were notorious for not getting along with others. Why should fellow Mandalorian’s be any different? “Fine.” He decides, since Fett’s given him permission to _fix his army_ , now that Ben had actually gotten the chance to get a feel for its current structure and operation. The hierarchies were simple enough in theory, but understanding who went where in that hierarchy required a bit more thorough of a study and understanding of the players. The lack of a formalized ranking structure and the absence of coherent and cohesive personell files had made this all the more difficult, these past two months. “They can assign themselves. Six man units, no less than three clans per unit, and anyone who doesn’t sign a roster in the next forty-eight hours will be assigned to one by _me_.”

“You think you can actually get these people to comply?” Ben is pleasantly surprised to find that that question is genuine.

“As an order from the _Mand’alor_?” Ben lifts a brow, the data-pad tucked in his belt holding all the authority he needed. “They had better. Skirata, once we have our rosters, evaluate their skills and experience and assign them into four tiers at your discretion. First tier being _jatnese be te jatnese_ , fourth tier being hopeless. I’d also like you to evaluate individuals for their competency in command and special fields, and have them flagged accordingly. We’ll reassign individual personnel as necessary. If this war goes on for any length of time…” Ben shakes his head, and shakes off the thought.

“Bralor, I have a few suggestions for training drills and scenarios, but I will leave oversight of that to you. The three of you may develop pass-fail criteria as you see fit. Tervho,” Ben turns to her, a generation younger than the other two, but just as competent in her abilities. “ basic competency in marksmanship, piloting, and first aide is a given for anyone who actually earned their armor. Find out where each unit is weak and where each unit is strong, what skills they lack and whether or not that lack is sufficient enough to have their unit reformed.”

Some of what he is assigning them to do is going to step on the toes of other peoples authority, but if those other people were better at it, it wouldn’t need to be done. If they’re insulted, they can take it up with Ben as they pleased, and he would deal with it. If Jango was going to make the best of having Ben serve as his general, then Ben needed an army he knew he could work with. In the Clone Wars, he’d known every commander, captain, and squad leader - every _trooper_ , at the beginning, if not there at the end – under his charge, what they were capable of and how to deploy them to the best of their capabilities. Here, he did not have that luxury.

The three mando’s before him each nod with the same sense of acceptance and skepticism.

Honestly, Ben will take it.

“Once we have them roughly ordered,” Ben mutters tersely, mostly to himself. “ see if we can’t teach them to understand one very basic tenet that may save their lives.”

“And what’s that?” Bralor asks, Tervho minding her tongue this time. Skirata keeps his mind to himself, observing.

Ben gives her a flat, hard look. “ _Vode an_.” He gestures sharply to the motion around them, to the sea of colors and clashing personalities. “What I’ve seen as of yet is men and women doing half of _Kyr’stad’s_ work for them.”

They bristle, but Ben’s hard look dares them to deny it. They might know how many their own clans have lost, but he is the one who has been compiling the casualty reports.

Fett and Kryze were doing their best, but they did not have the time nor the expertise to reorder their entire militia. It’s a damn hard thing to do once you’re already fighting the war. But Ben does not have to lead clans and mediate diplomacy and try and govern the systems still under the _Mand’alor’s_ control all at the same time. The war has his sole focus. He can do better. _Must_ do better.


	8. Chapter 8

The air around Keldabe is acrid and muggy, intermittent spring rains giving way to summer heat, the flow of the city churning uneasy around pockets of destruction and scorched ruin. Everyone out on the streets is wearing armor. Security checkpoints dot main thoroughfares, the sky above a no-fly zone, clogging trade and travel around the edges of the city. The Force is thick with tension and distrust, simmering under pressure. Ration lines are opened up where stall markets usually are, and there is a grinding, bitter hush where the regular hustle and bustle should be.

Satine is breathing sharply through gritted teeth, shock, sorrow, and an icy fury in her silvery-blue eyes as she takes it all in, glanced at street-corners and through the mouths of alley-ways and backroads, seen overhead from rooftops as they make their way, cautiously, to where what remains of Keldabe’s government has set up a command post.

The mourning purple cloaks the three of them have donned blend in to the crowd, most of the city – of the _system_ – draped in that color. Obi-Wan catches sight of more than one effigy on a screen, of little memorials to Duke Kryze tucked away where poorer clans and disparate individuals had paid their respects. It had been more than two months, but no one seemed quite willing to take down the banners.

Well, no one loyal.

He’s also seen the graffiti tags, Death Watch insignia’s, or slurs against the _Mand’alor_ , or symbols he was learning to recognize as anti-New Mandalorian, and patches of paint where such things had been covered up. He saw at least one that had a death mark over the sigil of the Jedi Order. He’d been tempted to carve the mythosaur sigil over it with his lightsaber, but had refrained. He didn’t know who would have to pay to repair the wall, and the people here were burdened enough.

They can get glimpses of the stubborn, charred remains of Keldabe Stronghold at the pinnacle of the city, scratching against the sky.

Satine stops. Just…stops walking.

“Only a few more blocks, Miss Duchess.” Padawan Orikhid says consolingly, head tipped low under his purple hood, but his shoulders are as tense as Obi-Wan’s, and his senses alert. Nowhere in this city has yet felt safe.

Satine, Obi-Wan thinks, does not want to be consoled. She has seen just as much as he has, in their furtive journey, if not more.

“Is this really my home?” She asks bitterly, not really speaking to either of them. “Is this what we become?”

Obi-Wan lurches, hesitating and then striding closer to her. “Satine…”

She turns sharply, glaring at him, and Obi-Wan winces at himself. Had he not just thought she did not want to be consoled? Did not want to be soothed? He may struggle with his own temper, but some people _needed_ their anger.

“Is this what my father fought for?” She demands, voice full of tears she refused to cry. They’re just out of view of a plaza, and Obi-Wan had been hoping to avoid it altogether, because of the darkness he can sense there, the death, but she must have seen. Buckets roped on chains, the blaster-scorch, the bloodstains on ancient cobble. An execution had taken place there.

“No.” Obi-Wan says firmly, more bite in his tone than he intends. She’s hurting, they’re both hurting, all of Mandalore is in pain, but this – they _cannot_ do this – cannot crumble with it. “Because your father’s fight isn’t _over_ , Satine.”

“Yes, it is!” She snaps back. “Because my father is _dead_!” She turned her cutting gaze away, glaring at a wall covered in so much paint and paint-overs that everything marked there has lost meaning in the mess. “This is Mandalore without him.”

“Padawan Kenobi…” The older Padawan tries, antsy that they keep moving, for all that Obi-Wan can feel him trying to settle their emotions – no easy task. Obi-Wan’s strength in the Force far outstrips the chagrians, making him difficult to influence if he isn’t inclined to be, and Satine has every ounce of her ancestors stubbornness and will.

Satine takes a sharp breath, smooths fine strands of hair back from her face, and looks back to them. She lets the breath out.

“How am I supposed to take his place?” She asks tremulously, gaze piercing and fathomless, and, expecting no answer, nods apologetically to Padawan Orikhid before striding past them both.

They don’t make it to the command post.

~*~

“What do we know of the Yinchorri that might be significant?” Mace inquires, late to the meeting because he had been left with the care of a small class of older initiates for ‘just a brief moment’ that had been _brief_ at all. It was the third time this month, and the crechemasters and instructors were getting more blatant by the day about what _excellent_ padawans their initiates would make. Feeling a tad harassed, and arriving just in time to hear Adi Gallia suggest they might take a closer look at the potential of the Yinchorri being the aggressors at the Golden Nyss Shipyards, as opposed to a business competitor.

Master Gallia gives him a level, flat look. “That the last addition to the archives regarding the system of Yinchor was the work of Master Naasade.” She remarks, radiating a sense of begrudging resignation to trouble, where that man is involved. “Which I cannot open without a Councilors Code. Hence.” She states, indicating her presence.

“A simple remedy, for that, there is.” Master Yoda reminds her.

Oh, good. Mace is not the only one being pointedly harried by meddling colleagues.

Master Gallia doesn’t deign to glance at her elder.

The work of Master Naasade, Mace thinks, and feels a headache coming on. He shares a glance with his fellow councilors, Master Mundi intrigued, Yaddle grave, and Dooku perplexed.

The council had elected not to share with all their fellows the exact nature and contention around Master Naasade’s existence, deeming it wise to not have the sum of their perceptions entirely skewed by the controversy surrounding the idea and probably reality of time travel. Mace understands the wisdom of the decision, but at times, it is _inconvenient_.

Made more so by the fact that apparently, Naasade _knew_ something of Yinchor, possibly even of present events, and by the decree of the Reconciliation Council, the Jedi were utterly prohibited from actually contacting him until his term of service to Jango Fett had expired.

But at least he left them _something_ , apparently, in the event of his absence. 

Though Mace would like to ask how long it’s gone unnoticed that Ben had been editing records in the archives. Thinking back, Mace wants to groan and press his palms to his brow.

From the beginning, he suspects.

“You may of course, Master Gallia, borrow my passcodes.” Master Rancisis speaks up, stroking his silver beard with long, bony fingers.

“Thank you, Master Rancisis.” She dips her head, and the thispissian’s eyes gleam. “I will comp- I will delegate,” she corrects herself, somewhat irritably. “ someone to compile a dossier. Regardless, between our own failure to communicate with our team in the field, and the distress call from Mayvitch Seven, I would like to put forth the suggestion that this Council approve the assignment of a response force to cooperate with Judicial. I fear this situation has the hallmarks of full-scale military aggression. We may be stepping into the beginnings of a war.”

Several of the councilors frown, and Mace rubs his brow, catching Master Sifo-Dyas doing the same from across the room.

It was always a troubling, precarious thing, to involve the Jedi in military action. There was a great deal of difference, between a peacekeeper and a soldier; a difference Mace feels that the Senate, at times, blatantly fails to recognize – or even acknowledge. A difference sometimes even the Jedi, he thinks, forget.

He scolds himself. That is a bitter, suspicious thought, one not worthy of a Jedi. There is much to be wary of – he accepts that – but they cannot allow fear to separate them from their duty. The Jedi may no longer be synonymous with the reaching arms of the Senate, but they did still serve the Republic.

“See to it, we will.” Yoda nods, seeming withered and contemplative. The Stark Hyperspace War was not so long ago. The Jedi sent to deal with that had suffered, and more than one had lost their life. The loss seemed much more severe, now that they were so aware how few in number they and their fellows really were. If this were nearly as bad of a situation, they may suffer more losses yet. “For your diligence, our gratitude you have, Master Gallia.”

“Thank you, Masters.” Master Gallia bows.

~*~

It starts with a commotion. One they sought to avoid – would have avoided, if not for the shrieking. Not the high battle cry of an angry Mandalorian, but the shrill wail of a scared child.

Obi-Wan and Orikhid both turn, drawn towards it, and then hesitate, instinct warring with discipline. Their first duty was to protect Satine Kryze, who had more bounties on her head than they could count.

Satine does not hesitate, turning instinct and duty towards a unified cause. They make their way to the street proper, where a thicker crowd has gathered, _mando’ade_ with armor and without, children too, in a mix of states, as if they had all simply spilled out of their homes.

They had, he realizes. There was some altercation occurring, a gang in red and bronze holding several other persons in restraint, or pinned thrashing against the ground, entering a home Obi-Wan suspects does not belong to them. He couldn’t make out what the argument was, too many shouts and overlapping voices.

“ - _Kyr’stad_ scum.”

“ – _Nayce! Nayce_!” _No! No!_

He catches a flash of _blue-black-lavender_ , a pair of Keldabe’s judicial officers trying to get through the crowd. Someone else is dragged outside the dwelling, and Obi-Wan is beginning to get an idea of the situation. Whomever’s house is being raided, their neighbors – or, well, _someone_ – suspected them of being _Kyr’stad_ , and had raided their home to prove it.

“ _Tion’cuy_?!”

A demand, daring the family to identify the man.

The onlookers murmur and push, suspicion churning like a storm, tension rising, ready to break.

“ _Kyr’stad! Chakaaric kyr’stadii_!”

Obi-Wan could feel the anger in the crowd swell, the accused family struggling, denying, being disbelieved. The defiant look on the young mans face - perhaps stubbornness, perhaps an admission of guilt. Did it matter? The crowd _wanted_ him to be guilty. They wanted blood. This was going to turn ugly-

And there went Satine, driven out of shock and witness and into action, pushing through the pack of the roiling crowd, sharp elbows and firm, unapologetic steps slipping easily through armor and aggression with next to little notice. It is an ease and familiarity Obi-Wan lacks, because where she eases through, he gets shoved, and resorts to slightly dirtier tactics and little bit of Force. Orikhid grumbles despairingly at them both, and charges after.

“ _Ke’mot! Ke’mot_!” One of the officers bellows, both with his voice and a burst of signal that hits everyone wearing a bucket, making sure she’s heard. _Hold_!

There’s a spike of warning in the Force and Obi-Wan jerks, looking up, still trying to snag Satine by the cloak, in time to see a scuffle for a blaster –

It doesn’t matter who grabs the blaster. It doesn’t matter who fires the first shot. The crowd was primed, and what happened at that moment becomes meaningless compared to what happens _next_.

Obi-Wan doesn’t care for subtlety, as plasma and blaster-fire erupts, the firefight breaking out without care for the bystanders. He shoves with the Force, clearing out anyone between him and Satine, and tackles her, throwing his body – and his weight – over her, forcing her to duck down.

“Get _off_!” Satine elbows him in the lower rib, just under his armor, and he wheezes, because her _beskar_ bracers have a strike-cap for her elbows, and more than likely she just cracked his rib. He grits his teeth and forces an arm around her waist, prepared to haul her to safety. “These are my people!” She kicks his instep and digs her fingers into the soft gap at his wrist, grinding down on his bad wrist.

“What do you expect to do?” Obi-Wan demands. “You can’t stop this.” Obi-Wan swings her bodily around, and Orikhid, in a moment of horror, loses his lightsaber when her kicking boots connect solidly with his hands.

Obi-Wan cannot fucking believe it, but he’s having a hard time holding onto Satine, especially with the crowd surging around them, bodies knocking into his, so he can’t spare the effort to swear at the older padawan.

“Can _you_?!” Satine demands, activating her plasma-shield against his chest, which finally gets her free of his grip, knocking them apart. She falls, and Padawan Orikhis keeps her from hitting the ground. A blaster-bolt skitters off Obi-Wan’s helmet in the same second, making his visor flare white and throwing him to the side.

 _Can I_? The moment stretches, while his display struggles to compensate back to some semblance of vision, the world narrowed to the muffled static inside his helmet, and his own harsh exhale. He thinks abruptly of his master, unleashing a violent green storm of devastation, and abruptly follows the memory with a thought of his own; _I’m definitely not doing it like that_!

But he can feel the other people around him, with his eyes closed - blurs of dense emotion-heat and intent and violence. For an instant so infinitesimally smaller than the span of a heartbeat, every unique individual is burning in his senses, in the Force. For the briefest moment of pure clarity, he knows the exactness of them; how many there are, who is hurt, who is scared, who means malice – there is a brilliant, perfectly clear connection, in his head, between each and every one of them, a flowing picture of exactly what is happening-has happened- is about to happen. In the plaza. The city. The world – more- _too much_!

Obi-Wan yanks his senses back, feeling dizzy and exhilarated, his mind rebelling against his physical existence in a nauseating bout of non-equilibrium.

 _Stop_.

He doesn’t recall or even register having taken his lightsaber into his hand, but it pulls at him, grounding, a steady song right next to his heartbeat, drumming in his bones, teasing on the verge of whispers around his ears. The world washes out, and back in.

All of this, in seconds.

 _Stop_!

Obi-Wan demands it. _Makes_ it so.

The violence stops.

“Padawan Kenobi…” Padawan Orikhid says his name, something indescribable in his tone. Obi-Wan opens his eyes. The display in his helmet has cleared, and he can see everyone in the plaza has been knocked to the ground, weapons wrenched from their hands and suspended into the air. He’s shocked to see that even a pair of blaster bolts has frozen mid-trajectory, but the shock slips his focus, and the blaster bolts zing free, shattering a window and striking into duracrete.

People are bleeding. Children are crying or shocked into silence, their _buirs_ crouched protectively over them, shielding them. There are bodies in amongst the living, their guilt or innocence made meaningless.

Only Satine, Obi-Wan himself, and Orikhid are still standing.

“ _Jetiise_?”

“What the fuck-“

“Kryze?”

“Is that-?

“Kryze?”

“Where-?”

“Kryze!”

Satine’s hood has fallen back. She’s stepped away from Orikhid, standing on her own. There is blood beneath her boots, and she looks over her people, over their violence and pain. A larger patrol of Kaldabe officers reaches the plaza, halting at the entrance for the scene before them.

Satine takes in every too young fighter, every old, bitter warrior, every scared child and unprepared bystander and every one of those wounded and dead on the ground, something terrible and unyielding in her eyes.

“Why?” She demands, shaking with her anger, with grief. Slips of wind pull at stray silver-blonde hairs, weak sunlight gleaming off her polished _beskar_ bracers, engraved with the lilies of Mandalore. Her mourning purple cloak obscures her clothes like a rippling shroud, and she stands her ground with the same disciplined pride as any warrior before her. “ _Look_ at us!” She raises her voice, but she doesn’t scream. Those who knew her father will recognize the same quality of cutting command in her tone. She is her father’s daughter, no matter their differences. “ _Mando’ade_ killing _Mando’ade_. This is not who we are!”

Her chest rises and falls with passion, and be it shame or something else, no one braves to make a statement against that accusation.

“ _Ad be_ – Duchess Kryze.” One of the officers calls correcting her title mid-address. Satine looks to them, gaze still fierce and piercing, and the officer flounders a little, gesturing to the situation vaguely. “We’ll deal with this. Two of my officers can escort you to Command.”

Satine takes a breath, perhaps to refuse, but that would be… the offer is not made so much out of necessity, given her two obvious bodyguards – one of which was now of the presence of mind to discreetly recollect his lightsaber – so much as it was made out of loyalty. To not accept would shame them.

Satine presses her lips together and nods with grace before looking away from _everyone_ , as if she can no longer bear to look at them.

“Obi-Wan.” Orikhid coughs quietly, shrugging his shoulders in a pointed manner.

Right.

Obi-Wan eases loose his hold on the world and the people around him. Some jump to their feet, a few looking ready to fight him for having had the audacity to attack them with jedi tricks, but Obi-Wan tilts his head up, shifts his balance, and rolls his shoulders, emphasizing his own _beskar’gam_ under the cloak and his perfect willingness to meet them head on. They back down, even if only because the officers are starting to take stock of the survivors for treatment, questioning, and arrest. The weapons Obi-Wan lets drop away from eager hands. Others can sort that out.

He follows Satine.


	9. Chapter 9

“Has anyone here ever worked directly with the Jedi before?” Specialist Si Zu Hii, Taskforce Negotiator with Judicial Defense, inquires curiously, easily the youngest of among the officers present. He has a round, olive face, and long black haired pulled neatly back into a silk tail.

“Directly?” Captain Zillian Tahan of the 117th Sky Defense Corps, teeters one hand, short maroon hair matching her maroon lips, and the similarly colored scars that splash across her face and arms from a crash no one had expected her to survive. “No. I’ve seen the aftermath of more than a few, though.”

Si Zu Hii smiles politely, but her response is not…. encouraging.

Captain Dafa-Neu, with Besh-42 Advanced Tactical Support perks up, which is noticeable only as a brightening of gleaming green eyes, as he’s dressed one step down from his deployment gear, and otherwise covered head to toe. “I did a tour with Riot Control a few years back.” He shrugs. “It was boring. Not much to do with Jedi around just _making_ people calm.”

Captain Jeremaine Bitteren, easily the oldest among them, and with the grey fur and raggedy scars to prove it, just snorts, shaking his mane. The patch on his uniform placed him as captain of the 8787’s Peacekeeper Ground Deployment Forces. “Boring is _not_ what I’d call the Jedi.”

Dafa-Neu rolls his eyes. “Meh. Hey, do we have to worry about catching that temple disease?”

Si Zu Hii purses his lips, repressing to urge to point out the fact that they would have to know Dafa-Neu’s species before being able to provide an exact answer, but the quick answer he does supply. “No.” He says simply, having looked it up in case vaccinations were required.

“Hn. Good.” Dafa-Neu nods, accepting that bluntly. Si Zu Nii worries at a thread on his sleeve, and no sooner have they gotten that exchange out of the way than the Jedi finally appear, the door to the officers lounge aboard the Republic Cruiser assigned to this operation swicking open.

Si Zu Hii brightens when a small green figure appears first, but is very glad he had not blurted out a greeting, as it became apparent at second glance that this was not the esteemed Master Yoda, but his counterpart, the less publicly known Master Yaddle.

Apparently having an argument, as the tall, dark-faced man behind her does not look pleased.

“ – understand that, but the fact remains that being able to contact Naasade would be _useful_.” Master Windu, Si Zu Hii believes, gripes.

“Serve the Jedi, he cannot, while serving Jango Fett, he is. Non-negotiable, that is.” Yaddle replies, a clipped curtailing end to that particular argument. “Tired of repeating myself, I am. Accept what we have, we will, and act accordingly, as always we have done.” She lifts a narrow eye on the younger master, who nods, looking unhappy.

The man that enters next is silver-haired and severe, and the one that follows him is almost entirely his opposite, middling aged, a tad heavyset in the softer sense, and unassuming from his brown hair to his simple – even by Jedi standards- robes.

“Greetings, Officers.” Yaddle bows her head, and Si Zu Hii notices that his counterparts all pause hesitantly, for a moment, for having to attempt to address someone so very much shorter than they are. Si Zu Hii can visibly see Captain Tahan debating with herself whether to stay seated or rise. She stays seated, but her posture straightens. “Master Yaddle, I am. Masters Windu, Dooku, and Giett.” Each man bows their turn.

“Four Jedi?” Captain Bitteren growls out, surprised, once introductions have been returned on the part of the judicial officers present.

Master Giett puffs a small laugh. “Captain, we have brought a total of _twelve_ of us.”

Si Zu Hii is surprised – a little shocked, even. The look on his fellow officers faces reflects much the same reaction from them.

“I take it you have reason to believe this could get ugly.” Captain Bitteren snorts, grizzled mug scowling. “Care to share with the class?”

Master Windu offers him a pinched, apologetic look. “Just consider it… Jedi intuition.” He offers displeasingly. “And an abundance of caution.”

“Ugh.” Dafa-Neu rolls his eyes.

“Right.” Captain Bitteren nods. “ _Really_ ugly, then.”

~*~

Fett has just gotten back, having helped scatter another half-hearted attempt on _Kyr’stad’s_ part to break their blockade on the hyperlane. An attack serving more to harry and use up the defenders resources than to actually break the blockade.

He’s barely gotten his boots on the ground than someone is calling out to him.

“ _Mand’alor_ – your _jetii_!” A mando points, and Jango grumbles at the address, but he nods, able to see the issue from across the hanger. Ben is dragging a shorter person away from a fighter jet, an angry mando storming up to him from doing so. He is guessing, by the size of the individuals involved, that the shorter person is some kid, and the angry mando their _buir_ or kin.

By the time he gets there, Ben has released the kid, and the _buir_ is shouting, bucket clenched in a fist ready to swing. Ben is a tower of steely, cold resolve, arguing back with a sharp bite to his words that’s more vicious than Jango’s used to.

“ – every right to fight for her people!”

“She’s too young! She should not be-“ Ben levers a sharp hand, stern in his refute.

“ – bastard understanding of our ways, if you think she’s too young! She’s old enough! Don’t tell me-”

“I _won’t_ allow it.”

Jango lifts his brows and pulls off his bucket at that grim declaration.

“What right do you have? You’re just some _jetiise hu’tuun_ , and we _don’t_ take orders from you. My _ade_ are more than capable-“

“ _Gev_!” Jango barks out the order after the insult, marching towards them, brimming with irritation over anger over left-over adrenaline. He looks the girl in question over and nearly growls at the Jedi’s obstinance. “She’s fourteen, and she _earned_ her _beskar’gam_.” Jango rebuts, referencing the supercommando code, which he _knows_ Ben has memorized, if only because he’s a jedi and they are annoying good at memorizing such things. He agrees with the angry _buir_. Ben’s going too far. “That makes her an adult. You can’t tell her she doesn’t have the right –“

Jango realizes, even as he speaks, that he may have greatly misjudged the severity of the situation. The look shifting in Ben’s eyes when they turn on Jango with a flash of betrayal he _does not deserve_ is not the righteous indignation of an affronted _jetii_ , but a seething, bitter anger.

“I am not training any more _child soldiers_!” Ben raises his voice at the _Mand’alor_ , and it rings off the silence around them, the quiet of a watchful, invested audience witnessing an unexpected spectacle. “I have done enough of that for a _lifetime_.”

Jango reels, grinding his jaw and wondering, by the _ka’re_ , what the fuck he just stepped into.

“ _Ben_.”

The other man does not heed the implicit _stand down_ in his tone. Instead Ben points at the girl, her armor shiny with new paint, body stocky and soft the way young _mando’ade_ tended to be, training combatted by youth. “If you fight me for her right to die for you, I will walk away.” Ben declares sharply, something jagged and brittle in his stance and in his voice that tells Jango he needs to be exceedingly cautious. This is _not_ a matter of philosophy – they are treading against something for more dire and deeply personal.

The _Mand’alor’s_ first instinct is to push back, hard, and remind his _vod_ that he has no right to walk away, and that even if he did – he literally can’t. The Jedi won’t take him back, not until he’s fulfilled their agreement with Fett.

Jango bites back the instinct. Spitting his commitment back at him like that would be nothing but cruel and belittling. This man is his _friend_.

Aside from all of that, however, it’s an empty threat. He doesn’t for a second believe Ben would walk away. Doesn’t think Ben is capable of walking away like that. His fight for Mandalore hinges on far more than his opinion of Jango, he knows that much. But the Jedi is desperate.

“Your _verd’ibir_ was younger, the first time we met.” Jango reminds Ben instead, attempting – _much against his nature_ – to defuse the situation. For once, the mandalorian has to be the calm one, the one in control, because right now – right now he doesn’t think Ben _can_ be.

“He wasn’t going to war for me.” Ben’s voice drops, hollowing. “He wasn’t being sent to kill and die for me.” His hand drops back to his side, and Jango can see that it’s trembling. Not from too much emotion, but the kind of shocky tremor that comes right off the list of TSR symptoms.

The Jedi was riding the fucking edge, and Jango emphatically _did not_ want to see him tip over it.

“I can’t – Fett, I _can’t_.” He shakes his head, bites his lips, and holds himself so tightly together that anyone could tell he’s on the verge of shattering apart.

They have an audience.

In fact, they have more of an audience now than when they started.

Jango hates this. He pins Ben with a look, a silent command to _stay_ and _give him a minute_ , and then turns his gaze on the girl in question, who stands there full of nothing but pride and defiance and the reckless ignorance of her own mortality.

“ _Mand’alor_.” She salutes. “I’m willing. I’m able. Let me fight.” She demands. “ _Cun oyay_.”

 _Our lives for Mandalore_.

 _Child Soldiers_ , Ben had said.

It grates.

“ _Mand’alor_ -“ The mando steps forward, and Jango cuts his attention to him, jerking a hand for him to shut up.

“You’re her _buir_?” Jango cuts him off.

“I am.” And proud of it, his tone says.

The supercommando code says fourteen is old enough. Even _Death Watch_ -

Jango Fett’s entire being revolts.

He looks at the girl again. “Our _Manda Jetii_ does not deny you to insult you.” He tells her with absolute certainty. “He does not do it to demean your training, you character, nor your spirit. If he sees half of what I see in you – and the fucker damn well better - then he knows you are worthy of your armor, and your paint, and of calling yourself _haat mando’ade_.”

She preens, and her _buir’s_ face darkens, expecting what his words might be leading up to. Jango shoots him a warning glower. “But there is more to serving in war than that.” He continues.

She wilts, and then bristles with indignation, no matter that he is the _Mand’alor_. He turns his warning glare from her father to her, and she stiffens up, mouth gritting shut, displaying her discipline.

Jango lifts his gaze, making sure his people know that he is saying this not just for her, but for all of them. “ _Kyr’stad_ would not hesitate to send you to the front. Not because you are skilled, or have the best training, or because you have the fiercest heart. Not for your honor, or your rights, but because _Kyr’stad_ does not value your life. They do not value your spirit. They do not value what you could bring to the future of Mandalore. _Cun oyay_ ;” Jango repeats back to her. “ does not mean that there is honor in throwing your life away. I do not want you – any of you - to die for me, for Mandalore. I want you to _live_ for it.”

“I’m not a coward.” The girl mutters petulantly, protesting the difference between responsibility and glory even as she recognizes she is going to have to resign herself to it.

“You are not cannon fodder either.” Ben says stiffly. “Good enough for war does not mean you are ready for it. Nor should it mean you _have_ to be.” The jedi cuts a glance – an _accusation_ – towards her _buir_. The girl misses it. The man does not.

She glowers at the Jedi, expression twisted up begrudgingly, and then turns pointedly away from him, and pins her eyes on Fett. “Then what am I supposed to do?” She demands of the _Mand’alor_.

His brow twitches.

“There is far more to war machine than the _front lines_.” Ben says, somewhat derisively, and with a shift in tone and temperament that tells Jango he’s pulling back from the edge. “If you want work, there is plenty for you.”

She turns a disgusted, unhappy look on the Jedi and nods. “Fine.” She declares, and then looks away, embarrassed and uncomfortable, at how dreadfully _relieved_ the Jedi appears to be.

Ben catches Jango’s gaze with that same relief, so he knows exactly how she feels, and he begrudges the man for it. Jango glares back flatly. “ _Sixteen_.” He declares simply, cutting future such arguments off at the quick. Ben’s blue-grey eyes pinch, but he nods, submitting to that, though his fingers twitch and curl unhappily. There’s a murmur in the crowd, a low-level crackle as chatter goes over the comms in the buckets, but no one outright challenges that new restriction.

Jango snarls out a breath, angry at the entire situation, but he can’t do everything just to please a friend, and he can’t do anything that would please _everyone_. He is not ashamed of his peoples way of life.

And Ben wouldn’t be wearing armor if the Jedi in him couldn’t live with their way.

But damn if he didn’t make it complicated.

“Where’s my fucking datapadd?” Jango growls, knocking the _mando jetii_ into step with him as people start to disperse, the entertainment clearly finished with the _Mand’alor’s_ silent, aggravated dismissal.

Ben slips it from is belt and holds it out. Jango yanks it from his hand and gives his friend a hard look.

Blue-grey eyes shadow, but don’t back down. There’s a thread of defiance in the depths of Ben’s gaze- hell, in the man’s soul, that refuses to yield and always will. It’s nothing like the defiance of youthful pride or Mandalorian ego.

It does, however, have the same effect of making Jango want to hit the man. He refrains, and instead offers Ben a hard, threatening look.

They both silently agree that they’re not going to talk about it right now.

But they both know they are going to have to eventually.


	10. Chapter 10

Satine walks with a firm stride, a straight back, and a level gaze looking only forward. Her father’s – _no_ , her _verde_ \- and Fett’s, respectfully pulling themselves out of her path, offering salutes that are loyal and deferent and make her want to weep. What do these _mando’ade_ think they owe her? What do they expect of her? She had been absent from Mandalore since childhood, safely out of reach – and out of touch – on Coruscant. She had openly defied their ideology, unapologetically favoring the New Mandalorian movement. There are times where she has _flaunted_ her disdain for her peoples violent history, the one these same men and women were so proud of.

Her eyes grow hot, and her breath stings in her chest. She forces herself to keep breathing, fists clenched in anger – at them, at herself, at her father - which makes her feel so damn guilty.

Death Watch killed her father, and she blames them for it; _hates_ them for it – wholeheartedly and with such a viciousness she didn’t know she was capable of, but she regrets….

She regrets much, so much, of what never went resolved between her and her father. What they never had time for. What they wasted arguing, because Satine could never seem to not argue with her father, for all she loved him.

“Satine.” Bo-Katan appears in front of her. Her sister. Bo-Katan _Fett_.

Bitterness surges in her heart, another wave of vicious, unforgiving anger. Satine had been sent away by her father, but Bo-Katan was the one who had truly left him. Left them.

 _Duchess Kryze_ , these _mando’ade_ called Satine, the entire system on her shoulders, when she was never supposed to have been her father’s heir.

Satine can forgive her sister for that. Has. But she cannot forgive her for breaking her father’s heart.

“ _Ad be Fett_.” Satine greets brittlely. Bo-Katan flinches, and Satine isn’t sorry. Bo-Katan removes her helmet, red hair gleaming under sharp white lights, over sun-deprived skin. Her silver-green eyes – their father’s eyes - are shadowed and sharp with anger. Good. If they had been _sorry_ , Satine thinks she would have hated her sister even more for it.

Conviction meant you had to live with your regrets. Being sorry now for what she has done, for who she is, would have been worse than worthless. Would have been _insulting_.

And Satine could abide no insult to her father’s memory.

“ _Jorad’par_.” Ronin Murr, one of Fett’s favored _vod_ , steps up, unabashedly cutting through the tension between the sisters. Satine is getting used to the dull blue bodysuits and the black over polished silver that marks the new True Mandalorians, with that gold mythosaur sigil standing out in stark contrast, but Murr has also added the bronze patterning of his clan back to his paint. Clan Murr is divided, she knows, in their loyalty, but his paint tells the world that he stands for his family, as well as for Fett, and that he is unashamed of it. _Jorad’par_ – _Speaker in Waiting_. The address still hurts, still serves as a raw reminder that she is trying to stand where her father stood, and the weight of it is crushing. “You ran in to some trouble?” He prompts, eyeing the blaster-score across Obi-Wan’s green and silver helmet.

“We’re fine.” Satine replies. She refuses to look down. If she looks down, she will see the dull red of drying blood on her boots, a few discolored spots also adorning her cloak, from her near-fall. “My people are not.”

Had she thanked Padawan Orikhid for catching her? She doesn’t think she did. She can’t recall thanking either of her protectors.

“We’re doing the best we can.” Bo-Katan retorts, arms crossing. “But the defense fleet is stretched thin. _Kyr’stad_ is rooted deep, and our people don’t make anything easy. We can keep the populace pacified or we can smoke out Death Watch, but not both. Not without more _adade_.” _Personnell_. “ And the Mand’alor has none to spare, not unless he wants to abandon the fight for Concord Dawn, or move the blockades on the hyperlanes back, or sacrifice the mines on Concordia.” Bo-Katan’s tone turns darker and bitterer the more she speaks. “ _Kyr’stad_ was prepared for this war. They’re in deep and they’re everywhere.”

“ _Haatyc or'arue jate'shya ori'sol aru'ike nuhaatyc_.” Obi-Wan mutters to Satine’s left. _Better one big enemy you can see than many small ones you can’t_.

Satine can feel her mouth pinch, repressing a scowl. Death Watch knew their doctrine, and were doing their level best to be both. And they were _succeeding_. Her father had been bitterly impressed. Satine refused to allow Death Watch even that much regard, even in her own head.

“Sacrifices will have to be made.” Murr says gruffly, brown face and greying brows furrowed grimly. “We’ve reached a stalemate. Someone is going to do something drastic to get the upper hand, and I’d rather it be us.”

Satine grinds her teeth, wanting to argue. She could not just let her people tear each other apart. What they had seen in the streets – that was happening _everywhere_.

Why can’t they just _stop fighting_? She just wants to _scream_ , but that will do no one any good, not even herself.

“I want to speak with the _Mand’alor_.” Satine says instead, her voice calm and controlled.

“We can arrange that.” Ronin Murr nods.

“Then have it done.” Satine commands him, trying to feel less like a child playing pretend. But there is nothing but discipline and respect in his response, so perhaps, on the outside at least, she is succeeding. “And send for the Clan Leaders. I will speak to them while I am here.”

“You’re not staying?” Bo-Katan demands.

“ _Lenedat nari umaan nynir_.” Satine mutters. _A moving target is harder to hit_. “The Speaker for Mandalore, interim or not, is no coward. I will not hide behind my sister and leave my people to suffer this without acknowledgement. I will not let them think they are abandoned.”

Now Ronin Murr hesitates, looks to – _advise_ , uncomfortably unable to bring himself to chastise the _Jorad’par_. Even if she is a seventeen year old girl who won’t ever wear proper _beskar’gam_. “A public address would not-“

Satine lifts a hand, and he stops, and she lowers her hand, clasping one over the other in front of her waist, trying to emulate the poise and unyielding dignity of the Queen of Alderaan. “I am not a fool.” Satine reassures, though her sister’s dirty look suggests argument. Satine glares back at her. “I will make an address from Sundari. I need to speak with their leadership anyhow, and the dome city is safer.” For a given value, at least. It was easier for the government to maintain control there, than in the ancient, sprawling, open metropolis of Keldabe. It did not mean that she would not find enemies, or that enemies could not find her.

Bo-Katan rolls her eyes. “Going to drop by _Kyr’stad_ too?” The red-head mutters derisively.

“Were it I could trust them at their word,” Satine replies icily. “ as they are still our people too.”

Bo-Katan’s jaw drops, and then indignation twists into a snarl. “You won’t go anywhere near them, Satine Kryze.” She points a finger in her younger sisters face. “I swear, if you even _think_ about-“

“ _You_ have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do, _Ad be Fett_.” Satine seethes back. “The only way this war ends on a battlefield is if the entirety of one side or the other is dead. I am not going to simply watch my people slaughter each other. If I have a chance to make peace, then I am more than willing to risk my life to see it done. I have a _duty_ to see it done.”

It is a terrible irony, she thinks, matching vicious glares with her sister, that they had been closer together on opposite sides than they were when trying to meet in the middle.

Of a similar mind, Obi-Wan and Padawan Orikhid choose that moment to offer polite, interrupting coughs, reminding them that this is perhaps not the time or the place.

Satine turns away from her sister, the forceful disregard hurting them both.

“If you’ll allow me to escort you, _Jorad’par_.” Murr offers, voice and manner betraying nothing. Satine meets his steady gaze gratefully, and nods. “Our communications hub is this way.”

~*~

Bouncing into the lounge the padawans have claimed for their own, Sian makes for the booth where Padawan Swan is sitting and sprawls in across from her, grin lighting her dark lips. “Well?” She inquires eagerly.

Bultar Swan’s fine black brows lift, and she glances up over the datapadd Sian had given her earlier. “This seems….” The studious older Padawan searches for the right word with due consideration. “… irreverent.” She settles on. “Though engaging as a creative work.” She adds, to balance out the critique. 

Sian beams, and a shadow falls over the table as Padawan Vosa leans over, intrigued. “What’s irreverent?” She inquires, washed out blue eyes scouring them both for details, and alighting on the datapadd. A smirk touches her face. “Oh! Is that Sian’s little novel about-“

“ – people who completely do not exist!” Sian insists, making Komari laugh and Padawan Swan purses her lips, just a small gesture on an otherwise impassive face.

“Is this based on an actual Jedi?” She asks, tone just incredulous and disapproving enough to register.

“Well obviously I’ve taken come creative liberties.” Sian gesticulates. “With the time travel and the secret family and the murdered-“

“It’s totally based on Master Naasade.” Komari interrupts, letting herself lean over Sian and prop her chin atop her head, poking her cheek with smug teasing. “Can’t you tell?”

Bultar looks at the datapadd, and then the pair of them, brow pinching in consideration as she sets it neatly down.

“I am not sure this is quite appropriate, given some of the… creative liberties you’ve taken in regards to his personal life. The potential damage to his reputation if this is even _suggested_ to refer to him, with your intent to publish-“

“Oh come on, far worse holodrama’s have been made about Jedi – and I completely changed the names and the races and everything!” Sian protests.

“ ‘ _An unassuming figure about whom much, in fact, could and would be assumed, made his unexpected – and unprecedented - appearance at the Temple gates one early morning in the pale days of spring.’_ ” Komari recites from memory, still bracing herself on Sian’s shoulders. “ ‘ _This is not where the story starts, but it is, for all intents and purposes, where it begins_.’ Yeah, no, you’re right, no circumstantial resemblance _whatsoever_.” She drawls, huffing a laugh.

“You are not helping-!” Sian pouts, trying only half-heartedly to dislodge the older padawan.

Their comms all chirp, summoning them to the command deck. Sian jockeys out of the booth, Komari grumbling and refusing to hold her own weight until Sian is already standing and completely ready to cheerfully dump the older padawan on the floor. Padawan Swan hands back her datapadd, shaking her head and preceeding them both with the sort of disciplined grace that called the mind the presence of ambassadors and queens. Sian was, for a heartbeat, utterly jealous.

“Now that is not what I expected.” Komari murmurs, a hair-raising tone of the thoughtful, knowing tease only older sibling-like persons were capable of.

“What?” Sian clutches her datapadd, eyeing the older member of her lineage warily. Komari’s smile is oddly sweet and almost….wistful. She looks pointedly at Sian, and then Bultar Swan’s retreat, and then at Sian again, lifting bone-white brows suggestively.

Sian is blatantly grateful that her complexion and the fine peachy layer of fur over her tan skin makes it difficult to spot and call her on a blush, because she flushes right to the roots of her brown and white hair, and does the only sensible thing.

She bolts, calling back. “Don’t make things up!”

Komari cackles in delight. “ _Sian Jeisel_!”

Sian charges a little faster, and makes it to the command deck at the same time as Padawan Swan, just more flushed. Komari arrives a minute later, wheezing as she catches her breath from laughing, the traitor.

Sian ducks away from her, giving her a warning look not to taunt her about this as she ducks over to her master. Komari just shakes her head, fond, and presses a silencing finger over a sly smirk. Master Dooku notices, and scowls at the both of them. Probably for being too cheerful, cantankerous as Sian's grandmaster is.

Sian turns away, taking a few settling breaths, and looks up at her master, who takes a moment to register her presence. Sian smiles when he does, and earns a smile in return.

“Do we have any better idea what to expect yet, master?” Sian inquires.

“Unfortunately-“

The cruiser drops out of hyperspace over Mayvitch 7, the planet abruptly appearing below, surrounded by-

Explosions burst off the shields like battering rams, nearly knocking them off their feet, and the claxons _shriek_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MANDO'A: 
> 
> Verde - Soldiers, warriors. plural.  
> Ad be - child of. formal, as in 'the heir of'.


	11. Chapter 11

“One-seventeen, fighters, _now_.” Captain Zillian Tahan barks with short-hand command, and her people move, reporting in from the flight decks.

The cruiser turns awkwardly, but the shields hold. More or less. The laser cannons are firing, but they’re not as close to the enemy as they’d first believed, and the charges being fired back are non-standard artillery. They’re slower, but their range is far longer. The cruiser has to be closer for the cannons to do some good.

“Concussive batteries?” Someone mutters. “ _Kriff_.”

Those are outlawed in the Republic, manufacture and sale strictly prohibited, serving only as an offensive tool. Owning such things in and of itself displayed an _intent_ to go to war.

“Can we open communications?” The Judicial negotiator, Si Zu Hii, looking very collected if a touch nervous, inquires in a breath of quiet.

“Look out the viewport – we _have_ opened communications.” The oldest captain snorts back gruffly, no heat in his tone.

“Fighters are away, ma’am.”

Tightly controlled chaos. Judicial forces falling into the routines of training and experience with a little help from Master Jedi tamping down fear, heightening alertness, providing clarity.

Master Yaddle has her eyes closed in concentration, while Master Windu studies movements over the shoulders of a deck officer who hunches a little every time he notices the Jedi behind him.

“They’ve blockaded the planet, but the grid looks thin.” One officer reports. “We could break through.”

“Do they have ground control?” Captain Jeremaine Bitteren turns towards the deck officer, ruff bristling, the 8787’s Peacekeeper insignia flashing on his shoulder.

Another concussive wave rocks the ship, spraying across the defensive shields like malicious fireworks. The engines whine, cycling momentarily disrupted, causing the hull to shiver after the fact.

“Nothing we can pick up.”

“Can we communicate with the planet?” The negotiator inquires, doing a better job of standing out of the way than the Jedi.

“Transmissions aren’t going through.” A comm officer replies tersely. “Too much interference.”

“Their hold on the planet is weak.” Master Narec remarks quietly. “They don’t have the forces to siege the planet _and_ defend the blockade. Mayvitch Seven is being held hostage from the sky. If we break the blockade, our opposition will be forced to retreat.”

“Do we have a confirmed identification on those vessels?”

“Frequencies are flagged stolen.” A shaken head. “No direct Ident on our opposition.”

“Free the planet, _then_ we’ll confirm who we’re actually fighting.”

“Besh-42, you got blockade jumpers?” Captain Tahan calls across. Captain Dafa-Neu’s green eyes gleam.

“I’ve got a team.” He drawls confidently.

Maroon brows raise on the female captains scarred face. “Then _go_.” She commands with blithe impatience.

“We’ll join you, if that’s alright?” Knight Billaba inquires, more of a firm declaration than a question, halting the Advanced Tactical Commander before he exits. He perhaps grins, under the mask, eyeing the young woman.

“Miss, I’d be _delighted_.”

Master Windu makes a cantankerous sound, stepping up behind his former padawan. “Then kindly lead the way, Captain.” The harun kal says shortly. Captain Dafa-Neu salutes jauntily, taking a hasty step back before turning and taking off with a lope, leaving the Jedi to follow.

“I’ll follow.” Master Narec pipes up, squeezing his dathomiri padawan’s shoulder as she looks like she might protest. “It’s been a while, but I used to be good at this.” He reassures.

Another hard reverberation shakes the ship, and the shield generators flicker, the cruisers defenses weakening, systems tweaking just so slightly out of alignment, blast by blast.

“We can’t keep taking these concussors! The shields won’t hold!”

“Padawans, focus.” Master Yaddle speaks abruptly, earning the attention of the remaining Jedi, who were watching the light show out the window with trepidation and scrutiny. “Sense, what can you?”

Tsui and Sian share a look, whereas Ventress crosses her arms, and Bultar Swan closes her eyes, a slight crease forming between black brows.

“What about us?” Master Giett nudges Master Jinn, who gives him a blunt, long-suffering look.

“Stay out of the way, I suppose.” The long haired master replies.

“Assist in the defense, you could attempt.” Master Yaddle remarks, a tad reprovingly. “Physical objects, are concussive batteries. Perhaps flex your abilities, you might.”

The men share a chastised look, and walk thoughtfully closer to the viewscreen which spanned the far wall of the command deck.

“Not exactly small objects.” Master Giett mutters.

“And not exactly inert.” Master Jinn agrees, with a touch of petulant contemplation.

“Your poor padawans.” Komari Vosa appears abruptly between them, rolling her eyes. “Having such pitiful examples to follow. Who taught you to complain for having to try something new?”

Qui-Gon offers her an incredulous look, and then glances back at Master Dooku, who was stalking between deck officers, absorbing as many details of the greater, wholler picture as he could, to let churn and evolve inside his meticulous mind.

The younger woman grimaces. “Ah, right. I’ll give you that, big brother.” She concedes, but then offers Mster Giett a dubious look. “What’s your excuse?”

“I’m a simple man of simple means.” He shrugs unapologetically, unphased by the sharpness of the criticism. “I leave attempting the impossible for more ingenious individuals.”

“Well, we’re making the attempt today.” Padawan Vosa retorts.

“Then let it be less than impossible.” Qui-Gon tacks on, grimly amused, as he watched the flash of another projectile being fired, and felt the compact expectation of destruction in its design.

~*~

He has to take a pause, inhale, and push past the sharp, tight twist in his chest, when he enters the room and sees Bo-Katan and Satine Kryze standing side by side on the holo.

Adonai had never blamed him for adopting Bo-Katan, but Jango had always caught the looks the Duke had cast at her when Bo-Katan’s back was turned; had seen him force himself to stay true to his direction, when he’d enter a room and find his current and former heirs on opposite ends. Jango had always offered small updates of her progress and her care unbidden, so that the man would never be forced to face pity by asking for them. Once he’d figured out it was safe enough to do so that Kryze wouldn’t shoot him for having adopted her in the first place.

In turn, Adonai would tell him about Satine. Her beliefs, her passion, her skills and temper and how much she’d grown. Jango was not sure he’d ever be particularly fond of the girl, such as she was, but her father had been undeniably proud of her, and as Duke Kryze’s heir, she had the _Mand’alor’s_ respect.

So in honor of Adonai’s memory, the best Jango can do now is to try and watch out for them both.

But they don’t make it easy.

“ _Tukran’ika_. _Jorad’par_.” Satine technically outranks her sister, but Bo-Katan was his daughter. He’d greet her first. Bo-Katan’s piercing gaze narrows at him, but it’s irritation more than outright anger these days, at the endearing term. _Little Hellcat_.

“ _Mand’alor. Master Jedi_.” She returns the greeting, and Ben shifts next to Jango.

“Not at the moment.” He corrects simply, glancing aside when his padawan shoots him a flat look from behind the two young women. Jango suspects he is still not pleased with that. He himself had gotten a cold shoulder and colder glare, once he’d successfully finished arguing terms with the Jedi Council, and Ben had gone to set aside his tunics. He does not _like_ having Obi-Wan mad at him. Kid makes him feel guilty like nothing else, and it makes him second-guess everything he asks Ben to do for him.

Satine updates them on their harrowing journey, occasionally aided in detail and circumstance by Padawan’s Kenobi and Orikhid, who speculate on the nature and variety of her enemies, and the movements they’ve witnessed regarding the Death Watch and general civil unrest. Bo-Katan chimes, giving a status report on the situation in Keldabe, which after a quelling period seems to be growing more volatile the stronger they tighten down security.

“ _If you push a Mandalorian, prepare to get punched in return_.” Obi-Wan remarks, frustration and restlessness in his frame, the want to do something about the situation, the restriction that he can’t – his duty lies elsewhere.

Satine pushes on, informing them of her intent to further travel to Sundari, a promise to update them as to the situation there as well. Jango tries not to grimace, just not very hard. The sister’s start arguing about it, and Bo-Katan _demands_ that Jango forbid Satine from going.

His brows go up and the line of his mouth hardens.

“Exactly where in our relationship did you get the impression that _I_ had any right to forbid _Adonai Kryze_ from doing a single fucking thing he intended to do?” Jango demands, giving his daughter a hard look. “The _Jorad’alor_ may not be the _Mand’alor’s_ equal, but they are damn well not their servant either. If that is how you think this sector is run, how our partnership works, then you have more to learn than I thought. My duty is to provide the _Mando’ade_ with leadership and decisive authority. _Hers_ is to bring our people unity, to give them a voice to be heard by, and to council my leadership to ensure their prosperity.”

Bo-Katan flinches, and then just looks even more angry. Satine seems startled, for a blink, and Jango gives her a displeased look for it. She was her father’s daughter. Barring everything else, did she think he had so little respect, so little care, for Adonai Kryze, that he would so easily dismiss the respect due to his heir?

“ _All our people.”_ Satine gathers herself, and says firmly, tilting her chin up. Jango glances aside irritably and concedes that with the barest of nods. He may not _like_ the New Mandalorians, but-

“ _She means the Kyr’stad in that too, you know_.” Bo-Katan says acidly, eyes flashing.

He snaps his gaze back, first to his daughter, then to Adonai’s, who looks utterly unrepentant. “ _What_?” He demands.

“ ** _All_** _our people_.” She reiterates, voice stern and cool, looking _too fucking much like her father_. “ _Even the ones you hate_.”

Jango wouldn’t even be exagerating, to say the edges of his vision go black and red, as she starts a tear about the executions, about the death tolls, and the violence in the streets, and the extremity of the measures they were taking, were _willing_ to take-

“I am sworn to vengeance.” He snaps, when she criticizes crisply the elimination of an entire House. Not the _ade_ , who’d had their names stripped from them, but anyone old enough to have claimed armor, to have carried a blaster and used it with intent.

“ _And I am sworn to peace_!” She snaps back, pale and bitter.

“And how do you think peace is achieved?” Ben steps in, laying a hand over Jango’s shoulder, more warmth seeping through than should probably have been possible, through the armor and the silk-weave of his bodysuit, but the man was a Jedi. What was possible was always more flexible when their ilk were involved. The _Mand’alor_ clenches his jaw, makes an effort to quell the brimming tension in his body, the black fury that seeps out of his bones.

Shamefully, he admits that another reason Satine Kryze being a pacifist pisses him off is that he can’t take a swing at her when she makes him this fucking furious; the way he could take a swing at Adonai, who would expect it and defend himself viciously. Winning the fight never meant winning the argument, of course, but it sure as hell made him feel better. And occasionally, such as now, when his _Jorad’alor_ was beyond his reach, he’d save a fight just for when he returned, if the offense seemed severe enough. Adonai had expected that too. Sometimes Adonai was the one throwing the first hit. Jango certainly had no monopoly on anger, nor was Kryze the only one who pissed his counterpart off.

But a pacifist like Satine would never hit him back. So it would violate his sense of honor to do such a thing, and bring shame to his _aliit_. Speaking of his House and Clan, it would also absolutely encourage Bo-Katan to go back to attempting to murder him in his sleep.

“ _If you think you can achieve this peace with bloodshed, then you are willing to pay a far higher price – to make_ our people _pay a far higher price – for it than I am_.” The young blonde accuses severely, glaring sharply at them both. Jango closes his eyes for a brief flash of darkness, hatred and vendetta so deep and well rooted he doesn’t know who he’d be without it warring with the simple, unfair understanding that she was absolutely right. The price they’d pay for his vengeance would be unjust. But his want of vengeance is the _only_ reason he is _alive_ today. The sheer all-consuming desire to avenge his parents, his sister, his second father, the True Mandalorians, Adonai, _himself_. He is a selfish man, and he has never claimed to be just.

But he has accepted the mantle of the _Mand’alor._ By all rights, if his _Jorad’alor_ was demanding it of him, he ought to give her the respect of at least making an attempt to be.

“You can’t win _this_ war with words.” Ben returns, not unkindly, and far more gently than Jango Fett would have managed.

“ _Then what will it take_?” The young duchess demands hot temperedly.

Jango lets out a ragged breath, a sound just too rough to be called a sigh, and runs a calloused hand over his dry-sweat-varnished face. He needs a shower, a real one, he thinks, if he can manage to find the fucking time. _More than we’ve got_ , he ought to admit. The current impasse, the building expectation that something had to give, and he was damned bitter that it was going to happen on his side, on his loss, grated on his very being. The effects of Ben’s manpower improvements – which Jango still hadn’t had the chance to interrogate him about – were quickly showing results, bit by bit, but they had not yet had time to saturate through the entirety of the forces at their command, let alone make a true difference. Death Watch was far ahead of them on training, equipment, and planning, and it showed. Jango was only holding them back now because he had the sheer numbers, and command of the bulk of the system’s resources. Albeit not completely. The guerilla warfare and ambush strikes on Concordia was making it difficult to pull anything from the mines, and he could only demand so much of the general populace and supply chain without collapsing the infrastructure. The last thing this sector needed was another economic collapse.

 _I don’t know_ would be a more honest response, but too defeatist for his liking.

In the end, it turns out, he doesn’t have to say anything. Ben shifts, supplicant appeasement sliding into a posture readily becoming more familiar. The subtle adjustment of balance and shift of position making more apparent the breadth of his shoulders, the strength to be seen in his frame, the danger lurking in the half-made smile on his face and the sudden spark in his storm-like eyes.

Jango vaguely registers that Obi-Wan, like himself, has turned a sharp, pointed glare at the older red-head, having come to recognize this as a manner of himself Ben tends to reveal when you have done exactly what he wanted you to do.

Ben looks down, and then back up to the duchess with a touch of entreaty, and Jango crosses his arms. Suspicious as hell of what his friend – who was rather more apparently occasionally a real _shabuir_ – was up to. “We need intel we do not have.” He offers with a trailing, quiet sigh. And then stops.

Obi-Wan’s brow furrows, a mirror to Fett’s own. That’s it? He expected more, with how much Ben’s unspoken language seemed to have been putting on, but – the unnamed man offers seven simple words, and then stares at the duchess, as if she ought to know exactly what to do with that information.

Bo-Katan’s scowl is habitual, and very confused.

Satine stares back for a minute, and then slowly drags her gaze away, first to the floor, in contemplation, and then to Jango, who lets his expression flatten into something less offended.

“ _My father was attempting to trace the powers behind Kyr’stad within the sector of Mandalore. Who supports them, who supplies them, who offers them shelter. Attempting to cut them off from the outside was vital to his endeavors, but his work was incomplete_.” She says carefully, a tension, a rasp in her tone that reveals she has been reminded too bluntly and too often of her grief today. “ _I cannot run and hide, and I will not fight_.” Satine’s gaze is, daring any of them to challenge that. “ _I am, however, in a unique position to attempt to carry out my fathers work. It is necessary that I stay moving, if I do not wish to bring harm down upon any who shelter me. I may as well make use of it.”_ The young blonde glances back at the jedi master, a touch of wary suspicion to her gaze and in her stiff posture, unappreciative of manipulation. Jango knows exactly how she feels. “ _I’ve been considering this for some time now_.” She explains, and glares at Jango. “ _I will take up my fathers work and investigate Kyr’stad’s political allies and financial and material backers within the sector. I will seek out where you must strike to do so effectively and with the least amount of losses. I will find what we need to cut them off from behind, and when I do, Mand’alor, you will_ end _this war_.”

He glares back, but nods with respect. “ _If_ you can find a way to stop them.” He offers, not quite agreeing. _Kyr’stad_ will not appreciate her mercy, and many likely will not accept the offer made to spare their lives. So the alternative need not be spoken – if she cannot fulfill this, then he will do as he has sworn to his dead to do, and send _Kyr’stad_ to join them, all the way down to the very last being. He won’t make the same mistake they made with the _Haat Mando’ade_. He’ll ensure not even one is left alive to see their kind rise again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: Trying to pick perspectives for this chapter was more struggle than I was prepared for.
> 
> MANDO'A:
> 
> Jorad'par - Speaker in Waiting  
> Tukran'ika - little hellcat  
> Kyr'Stad - Death Watch  
> Ade- children, children of  
> Mando'ade - Mandalorians (lit: Children of Mandalore)  
> shabuir - bastard  
> aliit - identity, and the encompassing idea of your House and Clan, the connection of those around you who make you who you are.  
> Haat Mando'ade - True Mandalorians.


	12. Chapter 12

While Depa is aware that the terrestrial authority of Mayvitch Seven are pleased to see republic reinforcements, she would prefer that they not try and run under the nose of her ship before she’s really got it properly landed.

“ _Hey miss, don’t squash the locals_.” Captain Dafa-Neu pipes up, his fighter still circling, not inclined to land. “ _You’re in one of_ my _fighters, and that’s a lot of paperwork and reprimand I’d rather not deal with._ ”

Depa shakes her head, snorting. “Duly noted, Captain.” She replies. Her thrusters cycle down, heat radiating off the hull, and Depa unstraps herself, popping the cabin to disembark. Her master – former master, she reminds herself – doing the same not far away. She glances over and finds herself smiling, remembering the first time he let her fly her own transport. She’d been impatient and giddy, all of thirteen years old. It was one of the rare times were her master let decorum slide, and they’d both pushed the maneuvers their pair of crappy old cargo skimmers had been capable of performing to their limit.

Her master’s training report had described her performance as ‘acceptable’ and Depa had wormed that word into every conversation for three days, feeling like it was the best joke in the world.

She lands on the tarmac with an easy leap and looks up at the sky, where debris from broken vessels is still raining down in streaks of fire, turning to dust before it ever hits the ground, and judicial cruisers hover in the atmosphere, smaller vessel peeling of in wings, running sweeps to make sure the planet was secure.

Depa’s come a long way since that first flight.

The young chalactin knight is not overly experienced in these sorts of confrontations, but breaking through the blockade hadn’t seemed too terribly difficult, and her peers all agree it had been weak, though the oppositions aggression had been unchecked. They allowed for no diplomacy, and men and women and other-known beings had died.

“ – no warning, we weren’t sure our message got out before they blew up our transmission grid-“

Depa blinks, and looks at the very harried looking evocci man trying to explain everything all at one and praise their planetary rescue at the same time. She smiles soothingly, and lifts a quelling hand, projecting calm. “It is all right.” Depa says surely. “Take a breath, sir. Allow us to regroup, and everything can be explained.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course ma’am – oh. Oh! You’re _jedi_!” He seems thrilled.

“Some of us.” Depa nods. “We’ve accompanied a judicial interception fleet. Your planet is safe now.”

“Oh, Jedi, ma’am, thank you. Have – have you brought any medical aide? Some of the stations they attacked, we still haven’t managed to get everyone accounted –“

Depa lays her hand on his shoulder this time, willing him a bit more forcefully to _breathe_ and _calm down_. His adrenaline and anxiety were sharp and prickly in the Force, and if he were just a bit less noisy and abrupt, she could pick up on the subtler influences beyond his presence, and get a better grasp of the planet.

“We have medical transports on stand-by.” She reassures. “If you can relay the coordinates of those locations most in need, we’ll have them dispatched immediately.”

“Yes, of course, thank you, thank you so much-!”

Depa breathes patiently.

“ – I’ll – I’ll retrieve those immediately, I don’t- I don’t have them on me, I’m sorry, I’ll just –“

He dashes back towards the control tower, and Depa watches his shadow as it trails him across the tarmac. Then she turns and moves towards her master, who seems to be having a much more coherent and useful interaction with a different ground personnel, a three way conversation including Captain Tahan over the holo-comm, she sees.

The dark grimace that pinches at his eyes does not bode well. He nods a simple dismissal to the service crewman, who scuttles away, looking over the fighter jets with a bit of awe – not his usual transport, she’s sure.

“Master?” She inquires, still not quite out of the instinctual habit. Calling him by his name, she thinks, is a long time coming yet.

“Initial reports seem to collaborate with an assumption the Council held regarding this engagement.” He mutters, as his comm winks out, Captain Jillian Tahan signing off on the other end.

Depa feels her brows twitch, not sure whether to lift or furrow. An _assumption_ the Council had made? Since when? Jedi were _not_ in the habit of assuming _anything_ about a given mission.

“Which was?” She inquires.

“That the attack on Golden Nyss Shipyards and the Mayvitch system may have been a perpetuated by an uprising from the system of Yinchor.”

“The Yinchorri….” Depa had read the brief, but it hadn’t suggested they were at fault, merely that they might be involved or equally as afflicted as their neighbors. “But why? They’re a republic system, they have been for centuries.”

Her master just sighs, shaking his head. “Regimes change, and attitudes with them.”

“But to go to war with the Republic… who would _dare_? They haven’t even _seceded_. If they wished to change their form of government, why not just -“

“Depa.”

Her master looks grimly bemused, and she cuts off her …. Well, it _was_ a tirade. She doesn’t apologize. The Stark Hyperspace war had been one thing – an awful thing – but there had been a reasoning behind it. Bad reasoning, none she could reconcile – greed and corporate profit and ambition – but something like this? To unprovoked, lash out at their neighbors, seizing stations and systems by brute force. What were possibly hoping to achieve? They could not have believed that one Republic System attacking another would have simply been allowed to stand, did they? Did they think no one would notice? For _how long_?

She looks into her former masters deep brown eyes, and struggles to accept and release the indignation welling up inside, and the fear. “We’re going to war again.” She murmurs, tone low. “I do not want to go to war again.”

The last one had altered a studious, prideful senior padawan with too little field experience into a shrewd, disciplined young woman ready to uphold the mantle of a Jedi Knight. That year she spent gallivanting across the galaxy had not been a Trial in and of itself – an experience, certainly – but more so it was the time she needed to truly understand and accept within herself what her Trials in the Stark Hyperspace War had taught her – of necessity, and violence, the galaxy, the Force, and herself. And to see beyond it, as well. That what her Trials had shown her was not the all and end of the universe around her. She had come to understand dread, and despair, but all the more had she also come to understand _hope_.

But the lessons had been painful, physically and emotionally. And while she had survived, others had not.

“Neither do I.” Master Mace confesses. “But here we are.”

Depa takes a breath, lets it go. “Here we are.” She repeats.

~*~

“Would you sit still?”

“But I want to _see_.”

“Then get hit on the front side next time!”

“It’s not like I get to choose where the bruises end up!”

Mij Gilamar loves his wife. He loves her more than life itself, and that is a very good thing, because the medic finds the people he’s married into to be very _trying_. Not to be misunderstood – he loves the Mandalorian liveliness. Their passion, their dedication, their sense of expression and self-determination.

But the bantha-headed stubbornness, the brutality, the ingrained competitiveness, rivalry, and ego – it could be exhausting. As a medic, he’d long since given up the that his job was something he went to and came home from, and instead had simply become what he was, whether he was in a hospital, on a ship, or at home.

He’d come to love the messy extended family that was first his wife’s clan, and then the House their clan belonged to, and then the entire Creed under the banner of the _Mand’alor_. He’d come to call himself Mandalorian, with a sense of accomplishment and acceptance that he’d never have been able to comprehend before.

But some days… some days he remembers when life was simple, and his world had order, and – and that’s about the time he remembers too that his life had been small, and lonely, and he had been not so much content as confused, trying to figure out why his life, a good life, didn’t seem _enough_.

Sighing and shaking his head, Mij Gilimar turns around the corner, following those two voices who were loitering in a medical supply room only one of them had permission to be in and not without his supervision.

When he had first agreed to mind Ronin Murr’s charge while the man was too close to the battlefront to keep her at his side, he’d been naïvely under the impression that babysitting a young Jedi would be an easy feet compared to babysitting for some of his wife’s younger cousins.

And he could not exactly _complain_ about Padawan Casra, the tiny teal-skinned nautolan with big dark eyes, who had impeccable manners and was so very polite and apologetic for any trouble… but she was in turns too innocent and too intelligent, and she always seemed to catch him on the wrong foot. So he treated her like a junior medic not to be trusted with the power tools, packed her bag for scrapes and sears and sent her off to harass other people. This method seemed to work fine, and no one would dare take the chance of being too rough on the girl, not with Ronin Murr’s wrath to worry about, and the House of Mereel behind him.

How agreeing to watch one little Jedi somehow made him the person in charge of the second little Jedi came about, he did not know and was not involved.

And the second one, well…

He keys open the supply room, and there’s Padawan Keeto, perched on a rations crate, wincing when Padawa Casra prods her back, where she’s got her tunic pulled up.

He sighs.

Padawan Casra looks up and gasps, not so much startled as guilty, and Padawan Keeto jumps to her feet, one hand coming up to swipe at her face, far, far too late. She’s got blood all over her chin, a swollen lip, and bruised ribs by the way she can’t quite stand with her usual posture.

“Please don’t tell Master Ben!” The black haired padawan blurts out. “Just this once!”

Mij holds up a finger. “You used up your ‘just this once’ two ‘just this onces’ ago. What was it _this_ time?” This time, he admits, being arguably the worst. The first incident had been nothing more than some mild sears from a training stunner. The second one he’d had to stop a scuffle between her and two _ade_ , because _she’d_ tried to stop _their_ scuffle, and they took offense at the meddling of a _jetii_.

Padawan Keeto sets her jaw mulishly and refuses to answer, just a little more poised than the brand of hot-headed defiance he was used to from _ade_ her age. He turns his sharp look on Padawan Casra, who bites her lip and fidgets nervously, and caves in about ten seconds. _She_ respects authority. It’s his favorite thing about her.

“She was just trying to learn some bit about their culture and they mocked her and said she wasn’t anything without her lightsaber so no way did she even stand a chance at being like the _Mando’ade_ and then they tried to take it away from her-“ It gushes out of the girl, like a flood from a dam.

“They tried to take her _lightsaber_?” There was _bold_ , and then there was _stupid_. _Mando’ade_ , especially young _Mando’ade_ , weren’t always on the right side of that spectrum.

“They _did_ take it!” Keeto spits out, fists clenched and tone vicious – she’s picking up a bit too much from trailing after _Ad be Fett_ , he thinks. Weren’t Jedi supposed to be all self-control, courtesies and forgiveness? “So I proved them wrong and took it back.” She adds.

Ah _ka’re_.

“Do _they_ need medical attention?” He demands.

“I didn’t hurt them any worse than they hurt me.” The padawan retorts defensively.

Little Jedi _did_ practice restraint, then. What a relief.

Still.

He looks the girl over. She is not supposed to be his problem. This is not supposed to be his problem. If somebodies _buir_ gets pissed…

“This _isn’t_ my problem.” He says aloud. “Get up and march, kid. I’m taking you to Naasade.”

“No.”

Mij ain’t a born Mandalorian, but that isn’t to say he doesn’t have a temper. “ _No_?” He snaps back.

She shifts, heels drawing closer together, chin leveling parallel with the floor, hands clasping – looking more like a Jedi than the almost Mando she tries to emulate most of the time. He doesn’t like it.

“Maybe I am not an adult by any standard, but I am old enough to handle my own problems. I need to learn how to handle my own problems, and my own disputes. This is just experience. No one is coming to any real bad harm. Master Naasade has far worse to worry about. Please.” She says, tone turning grave and sincere in a way that makes him itchy.

He eyes her, unhappy at how reasonable and responsible and genuine that argument is. He points a warning finger at her. “You – are _trouble_.” He growls. He glowers at the both of them, when they start to relax. “If this comes to any worse,” he warns. “ you fess up, and you do it promptly. You don’t and I find out, I don’t care whose _ade_ or _hibir_ or whatever the fuck the Jedi call it you are-“

“Yes sir!” They both nod and bow, Keeto sucking in a crumpled hiss of pain.

“Don’t _do_ that you little idiot.” He snaps, jolting forward. “Sit down. Her ribs bruised or broken?” He demands of Casra, who smiles too sweetly in gratitude. Mij doesn’t think they’re broken, but Jedi were weird, and made it hard to tell.

“Bruised.” Keeto reports. “She says its all sorts of colors, but she won’t let me see.”

“Did I ask you?”

“They’re _my_ ribs.” She sulks.

“You aren’t my trainee.” He barks out. “Shut up.”

The young nautolaun beams, dark eyes shining. She practically glows. “I’m an _actual_ trainee? I thought you didn’t _like_ me.”

 _Oh, for fucks sake_ -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MANDO'A:  
> ade- children  
> hibir - student  
> Ad be Fett - Heir of Clan Fett, in this case, Bo-Katan.  
> Ka're - stars, also the spirits of previous Mand'alors, which are said to watch over their people.


	13. Chapter 13

The city-dome of Sundari was an artwork of rigid geometric design, clean elegance, and conservational infrastructure. Had it the requisite thrusters and engines, it could be plucked from the desert wastes of Mandalore and done just as well for its citizens in space.

Towers of pale crystal, teal tinted synthglass and blue-hued transparisteel shone over carefully arranged white courtyards and cultivated parks, layers of city arranged on top and below each other with far more care and consideration in their construction than the ever upward-expansion had achieved on Coruscant.

It was beautiful, and yet….to go from Kaldabe to Sundari, even with Keldabe in its wounded state, the near idyllic presentation of the New Mandalorians capitol felt… sterile. The uniformity of it more stifling than pleasing the longer it was observed.

Even the people were too alike, in the muted, cool-toned pastels of Sundari’s fashion, in the fact that almost the entirety of the citizens they encountered were themselves pale skinned and fair colored and human.

Padawan Kenobi, with his stark black and white tunics and his deep green armor hid under a mourning purple cloak and his sandy-red hair stood out. Padawan Orikhid, with his fine blue skin and chagrian height and horns, did far more than that.

As a Jedi, Orikhid is too well disciplined to allow this to discomfort him, but the looks he receives, even in passing; confusion melting into blatant staring, or startlement turning to something critical and then suspicious, they serve as a stark reminder that he is a stranger here, that he is foreign.

It’s… he will allow himself to admit that it is disappointing, at the very least.

It makes Sundari feel not like another city, but like another planet – even another system – entirely. He has spent more than a year in the care of the Mandalorian people, settled first into a sprawling clan of variety under House Kryze, and then slipped in among staff and scholars, safe at hand, but never too far from the Duke under whose protection he had been. He had been relieved, to don his tunics and declare himself a Jedi again. But at the same time, there was something wistful about it. He had made friends among those who had sheltered him – some of whom, he thinks, had forgotten where he came from, and why, when they saw him off and said goodbye, realizing belatedly and unhappily that they wouldn’t be able to _keep_ him.

More than one had offered; Tassah Tangi, an elderly mandalorian togruta historian and artist whose household he had stayed in for quite some time, who seemed to rather enjoy some less rambunctious company; and Pel Jaban, supposedly an assistant undersecretary of an office never specified whom Orikhid was rather sure was actually a dataslicer involved in espionage. He had been an infrequent but always amenable companion, and had taught the young changrian to play Cubikahd, which Orikhid had not once won, but kept offering and accepting to play with the other regardless and with good humor.

But Orikhid, grateful as he was, was not and never would be, he believes, Mandalorian at heart. He was glad, however, that he might call them among his dearest friends.

He had been grieving his master when he came to them, a jedi in training and an intended target of _Kyr’stad_ , and _yet_. The _Mando’ade_ had not made him feel strange and foreign, for all that that had been what he was. They had taken to his care and protection with too much vigor and focus for his origins to have interfered with that duty. So Mandalore had grown to feel comfortable around him, familiar and beautiful and different, no sense of order to be found, but a harmony he’d learned to understand.

To see that same culture seemingly pruned and codified and crystalized into the New Mandalorians vision…

He admires their ideals, but something about the execution of it displayed before him is… upsetting.

But perhaps that is merely a projection, and not entirely his own.

The Young Duchess is pleased to be here, rapt and awed as she is welcomed by people she has known through correspondence but never actually met. People she respects, who have influenced her political and philosophical ideals.

Padawan Kenobi, however, went from curiosity and rapidly backpedaled into dismay. Partially because their hosts seem to not understand that no, they cannot simply take Duchess Kryze away from her protectors, please stop attempting to separate them, propriety and custom or not. Partially because they also seem too eager to make the younger Jedi’s acquaintance.

Orikhid feels relieved more than slighted that they approach him with a polite glance and greeting and then leave him be. But the slight is still there, simply another facet of isolationism he tucks away in the back of his mind.

Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, to be fair, is a _subject_.

When Orikhid had first been contacted with the news that he could re-emerge as a jedi, and then that he was returning to duty post haste within the Mandalore system, he had heard his elected partner’s name and thought; _Wait,_ that _Padawan Kenobi_?

He had not been _nervous_ , to meet the much younger padawan, but he was most certainly surprised. Like all other Jedi, of course he knew the younger boys name, attached to that damning report and the focal point of the restructuring of the entire Order itself. He just supposed that someone of such prominence at such a young age wasn’t someone he’d ever find himself working with in the field.

But the young man he’d been introduced to was surprisingly…. He would not say ordinary, having shown up in _beskar’gam_ with a lightsaber whose power far outstripped Orokhid’s own, but not so extraordinary as Orikhid would have thought.

At first.

He had observed a young man with strong ideals, a bit of a temper and the focus and discipline which showed his early promotion to Senior Padawan to be well deserved. A promising young Jedi – far more promising than Orikhid himself, he thought utterly without envy. Orikhid did not desire fame or glory or laurels. He desired simply to do good in the galaxy, and to expand his understanding of himself and the Force. Maybe even go on to teach, later in his life.

Then, there had been the incident.

Orikhid has felt before the power of the great masters. He had been on the ground on Rilor 4, when they held back the cataclysm long enough for the ships to take to the air. Padawan Kenobi’s efforts had _not_ felt like that, like the surging of a tide, sweeping over all them, unseen but heavy and crackling with fierce energy. In fact, in that moment, Orokhid could not say he felt Padawan Kenobi’s power at all, so much as he had felt the world and the world had felt like Padawan Kenobi, and the young man had commanded it to _stop_ , and it _did_.

A consolation to his own shock had been that Padawan Kenobi – Obi-Wan, the younger boy insisted – had seemed just as surprised.

Orikhid would love to discuss the matter, to understand what had happened in terms of Internal Force versus External Force, and how what he had done – much of what he had done, as Orikhid was still wrapping his mind around Force Structures and Shadow-Walking as well – fit into contemporary theory. But they never seemed to have the time for such a discussion, and the real person Orikhid wanted to have it with, in the end, was his master, and the grief that remained over the loss of his teacher then made broaching the conversation with anyone all that much more difficult.

So he continued to observe his fellow Jedi, mentally making notes for the mission report he’d eventually have to write, and it kept his mind occupied, while he observed and tried not to have too strong opinions on the ideological clashing of the leadership of Mandalore.

He wondered how Casra was fairing, the other young Jedi refugee in the Mandalore System. The shock of the magnitude of the losses at the Medical Research Station, as well as the loss of her Master, had harmed her far more. She was both younger and more strongly connected to the Living Force. He’d wanted to inquire with Ronin Murr, her caretaker, but the Young Duchess hadn’t wished to linger, and he hadn’t had the chance.

“Are you alright?”

Orikhid blinks, realizing Padawan Kenobi has escaped, perhaps a bit brusquely, the clutches of the many attendants eager to make his acquaintance, and approached him.

“As well as I can be.” Orikhid replies honestly. “A little worried. We’ve not seen the worst yet, have we?”

Padawan Kenobi frowns and looks away, blue-grey eyes with just a few hints of fading green turning shadowed and troubled. Orikhid nearly apologizes, remembering that for Obi-Wan, he may have – the boy had known Due Kryze, had admired and respected him, and had had to watch him die. Had had to watch his daughter watch him die.

“Likely not.” The younger padawan replies, before he can. Orikhid nods, accepting that simply. He looks the younger boy over, helmet clutched in tense hands, gaze returned to tracking Duchess Kryze and the flocking of the New Mandalorian elite around her.

“Are you alright?” The chagrian inquires in turn.

Padawan Kenobi grimaces grouchily.

Well. He supposes that is an answer.


	14. Chapter 14

The temperature controlled environment feels a touch too cool, after the muggy heat of Keldabe. It takes some getting used to – ignoring the distant buffet and scrape of grit cast against the dome by powerful gusts of plains wind, and the odd way the sounds of traffic were muffled as opposed to amplified by the surrounding architecture. Still, sunshine reflected prettily off the towers around the accommodations they’d been given, and the layers of motion of the airways and parks outside the windows gave a familiar sense of life to Sundari. A cleaner, more idyllic reflection of Coruscant.

Part of the chill Obi-Wan feels, however, is likely the lack of his silks, which were taken away to be cleaned. A fact he appreciates, but the blue, white and lilac clothes he’d been given to replace them were lighter, less layered, and did not retain as much heat. Nor were they as comfortable a barrier between his skin and his _beskar’gam_. They were not, after all, _made_ to be worn beneath _beskar’gam_.

“ – there is no war is Sundari. We have overcome so much petty -”

“This entire conflict only serves to prove-“

“ - is the time to usher Mandalore into a new era, a better one. This ceaseless violence –“

He tries to focus more on the traffic outside, or on the artwork adorning the walls, rather than on the conversations circulating around Satine, and the New Mandalorian elite plying her favor in advance of her public address. Offering advice, perspective, and influence to the young Duchess.

“ – see that you take the time during your public address to -“

“ – if _Fett_ would only be reasoned with! He’s hardly less savage than these terrorists –“

“ Even your own father, ancestors welcome him, could have benefitted from a less toxic ideal-“

It is not his place, as her Jedi protector, to offer his opinion in her political affairs. He reminds himself of that. Repeatedly.

“ – opportunity to condemn such actions as – “

He grinds his teeth, and holds himself still, minding the edge of the room with Padawan Orikhid and maintaining a placid expression even when he’d rather much scowl for some the sly, chiding, even demeaning turns of phrase, delivered as sage counsel and elderly concern for such a young diplomat.

Not that Satine is missing any of it, to judge by the way her knuckles tighten around a datapad or a goblet, by the sharp glint in her eyes when she casts her gaze down to properly arrange her response into something polite. But there is also a hesitancy in her manners that was not present when she dealt with the Clean Leaders of Keldabe, who had been blunt with both their respect and their dissatisfaction.

That hesitancy, that desire to please people she has admired even when they are more patronizing than constructive in their conversations…. it bothers him.

“ – ith the support of the Republic, don’t you agree, Padawan Kenobi?”

It takes him a moment, first to realize he’s been staring at Satine again and to stop doing that, and second to realize he has been approached and addressed, drawing the attention of the room.

“Pardon?” He inquires mildly. The Sundari Minister for - Trade? Agriculture? He’s not sure – just smiles a little more indulgently and reiterates the inquiry with genuine enthusiasm.

Obi-Wan wonders, a little resignedly, if they are under the impression that he is younger than he is. He’s of a height with his master now, but he still has a face that will always bely youth.

Satine watches the exchange with the rim of her goblet pressed to her lips, silver-blue gaze flicking between him, the unhappy grip her has on his helmet, and the Minister. Her brow is carefully kept smooth, but Obi-Wan can feel her internal apprehension at their interaction.

“We were just remarking upon our delight that the backing of the Jedi Order for the New Mandalorian movement is going to prove invaluable in-“

Her eyes flutter closed, a silent exclamation somewhere between a sigh and a wince. Obi-Wan can feel the tension in his shoulders increase, his grip tighten on his helmet as the framing of the statement sets off warning flags in his head.

He looks back at the Minister, who is not as guileless as he is trying to appear, and cuts him off curtly.

“I am not here as a representative of the Jedi Order to promote the New Mandalorian doctrine as the future of Mandalore.” He states firmly. “I cannot allow you to utilize my presence in such a propagandizing fashion either. I am here, as a Jedi, to protect the Duchess Satine until this conflict is resolved and a proper election can be held for the next _Jorad’alor_ , as requested by Lord Adonai Kryze in the event of his death.”

 _There_ , he thinks, content to leave it at that before he got too aggressive in his response. He will not be used as a symbol for their righteousness, letting them leverage the Jedi in their political maneuvering. He admires pacifism. He respects the ideology, Satine’s ideology, but the more they speak and the more he observes, he is displeased with their execution of it and with the attitude of their governance. Partially as a Mandalorian himself, loyal to the _Mand’alor_ , and partially as a diplomat and mediator, who foresees fundamental issues rising from the unyielding, radical nature of the political and social divide the New Mandalorians represent, and the way they are handling their reformation.

The Death Watch, The True Mandalorians, The New Mandalorians…. Three equally uncompromising factions who refused to even attempt to reconcile…Stopping the outright violence of the civil war was not going to be enough to save Mandalore. What Fett did after to repair the damage was going to be his real challenge. And what Satine did _now_ was going to have a significant impact on the foundations of that challenge.

“But surely, as an individual, you can have an opinion?” The Minister for Education inquires, finger tapping against her champagne flute. Obi-Wan regards the older woman’s appeasing smile warily.

That question was a _trap_.

He glances at Satine, whose goblet is now on the table, whose body language was stiffening with displeasure. She refuses to look at him, awaiting his reply by staring over his shoulder at the wall. She knows where his loyalties lie within Mandalore.

The New Mandalorians were enamored with the idea of Jedi - New Mandalorian alliances; It would only be natural, would it not? Peacekeepers and pacifists? And Satine knew they would find Obi-Wan surprisingly non-amicable. He is _not_ a pacifist and he does not want to be used as their political tool.

“Jedi are obligated to remain neutral in regards to personal bias in carrying out assignments regarding diplomatic oversight and mediation.” He replies. “However, as individuals we are certainly allowed our own opinions. We make our own judgements and keep our own counsel just as anyone else might.”

The Minister of Education nods. “Then certainly you can agree that our way of life is an improvement?”

“I’m afraid, Madame Minister, that I myself am not a pacifist, and my opinion is that I do not want to be used as a symbol of your political leverage. It would be best, for both our interests, if I refrained from further commentary than that.”

Her expression, and a good deal of the mood throughout the room, sours at that.

It’s Obi-Wan’s turn to not meet Satine’s gaze.

~*~

The war room was three walls of consoles and data displays surrounding a holotable. The lights were harsh, which is why they were rarely ever on, and the room was a good ten degrees cooler than anywhere else, for the benefit of the computers systems.

This room was Llats Ward’s battlefield, the central hive of intelligence and data, from which he could analyze and devise tactics and strategies. He never thought, as a born and bred Mando’ade, he’d be doing so alongside a _Jetii_ , but that was an unexpected variable he could live with. Mostly.

If nothing else, it made things interesting.

Llats was a short man, with brown, curly hair buzzed close to his head and an oval face. He wore green and grey armor with pride, yellow adorning his pauldrons and knee-caps, and the mythosaur skull proudly emblazoned in yellow across his chest. He regrets that he had not fought beside the _Haat Mando’ade_ of old, but he gives all to his duty to make up for it now.

As a tactician and strategist, information was his pride and joy. He won’t admit it outright, but gossip was duly included in that, and Fett and his pet _jetii_ generated a lot of gossip.

He reminds himself, once more, to stop thinking of Naasade – and that name still unsettles him – as Fett’s pet _jetii_. He doesn’t want to accidentally call him like that out loud. Naasade was utterly unphased by it, but Fett had decked the last _verd_ to have done so too many times.

At the moment, Fett was fairly calm, in a quiet, brewing storm sort of way, leaning over the opposite end of the holotable, studying updated intel from the very recent fly-by patrol, glancing between his datapad and the holo-image.

From the outside, Fett seemed to have an unpredictable temper – like most _Mando’ade_ , really – and a blunt tendency to ignore that which he didn’t want to deal with.

Llats did not put much stock in outward appearances. Fett’s temper was very predictable. Short fused and triggered within easily identifiable parameters. The only hazard was that his triggers where outside the norm of his peers. And if one observed the pattern enough, they could understand that Fett ignored _nothing_. Either he stewed on it until he could address it to his satisfaction, or it was dealt with through other means – sometimes by his subordinates, other times by attrition, through the subtle maneuvering of assignments and clerical logistics. Delegation was a good trait in a true leader, expected even. Fett’s ability to approach problems sideways and backwards, the subtlety and non-confrontational problem solving he was capable of, that was unexpected. So was his selective tactic of being overconfrontational, throwing hits and extending authority he didn’t have to that Llats had first derided as arrogance, that even Duke Kryze had observed thin-lipped. Only to discover that Fett had the uncanny ability to do so to just the right people – the ones who would cower, and the ones who were discontent, who would slide past impulsive defiance and into treason. It pissed off the loyal, sure, but it rooted out the flawed, and Fett found a way to make it up to those that deserved better than he treated them.

Llats knows because Fett had done it to him, and he’d spent four days cursing the man and being a right bitter cuss about the sheer disrespect of his treatment before finding himself unexpectedly promoted to Duke Kryze’s command staff.

The door swicks open with a bit of a screech that makes all four personnel in the room twitch without fail. Naasade slips inside, wearing full _beskar’gam_ and fresh off a recon drill.

Fett gives him the flattest look he’s capable of, and the Jedi pops off his bucket, hair lank and face glistening with sweat, and smirks.

“Once upon a time,” Fett grouses irritably. “I though we came to the conclusion that _you_ were the subtle one.”

Naasade plunks his bucket down on the holotable, glancing over the readouts, and then lifts a brow at Fett. “I saw an opportunity to test their defenses.”

“You were on recon only.”

“I was collecting recon on their defense strategy.”

“You practically strafed their airstrip.” Fett snaps. “Your wing thought you’d lost your fucking mind – and I know that because I was hearing about it before you were even back in the system.”

“They should have paid more attention then. They could learn a thing or two.” Naasade replies snippily. “The aerial defenses may have been firing, but _Kyr’stad_ didn’t give chase. They hunkered down while we buzzed by. I don’t like that, _vod_.”

Fett rubs his jaw, scowling, and hands over the datapad. “Neither do I.” He mutters. “They’re pulling back. Just enough to fortify their positions. I know their going to hit us and hit us hard. We just need to figure out where they plan to strike.”

Naasade grimaces, wiping sweat from his face, and his expression twists further when he accesses the datapad, fingers jabbing away irritably. Llats doesn’t know why they share a datapad, when clearly it bothers them every time it changes hands, but he’s seen this little exchange more than once.

“Too many possibilities. I’m not sure which….” The _manda jetii_ shakes his head, looking more frustrated than usual.

“Maybe I should have given you the go ahead to raze that outpost to the ground.” Fett mutters. “At least then we’d get _something_.”

“I _was_ on recon.” Naasade refutes mildly. “And the pilots with me were no bombers.”

That was for sure, Llats quietly agreed. The spike in efficacy proved Naasade’s new regimen to be theoretically sound, but these _Mando’ade_ still needed experience in serving as an actual army. All the carefully laid plans in the galaxy were useless if those who carried them out couldn’t coordinate and perform well enough to actually follow them through. To a one, the _Mando’ade_ were unparalleled commandos. But you could not just use commandos like an infantry, or a navy. You had to teach them to perform different disciplines, and perform them well. A commando was superb individually, but not so much a larger regiment, or a fighter squadron, working in formation, in tandem. The old _Haat Mando’ade_ had excelled at it, but the old _Haat Mando’ade_ were gone. _Kyr’stad_ , on the other hand, was raised as an army.

Fett and Naasade keep bickering, in half sentences and partial suggestions, a well worked dance and fluid understanding marking them as real _vod_ in a way the rest of the _Mando’ade_ did not want to acknowledge.

“ – even pick Skirata, Bralor and Tervho?” Llats tunes back in, when Fett gets around to a partial accusation that he too would like to know the answer for. It was… uncanny, bordering on unnatural, how those three seemed remarkably perfect for the roles they had been given, as if they had not simply been plucked out of obscurity by a stranger among them.

“I had a feeling.” Naasade replies vaguely.

Fett scoffs derisively. “You realize I don’t buy half of your _jetiise_ bantha shite, right?”

Naasade looks aside for a moment, inscrutable, and replies tersely. “Someone I once trusted very much spoke well of them.”

“Someone named _Cody_?” Fett pushes bluntly, earning a hard look, and then a tight nod. “What was his _aliit_?” Fett presses.

Naasade glares at the _Mand’alor_ , and then, inexplicably, jumps his gaze to flit over Llats, and the two unobtrusive personnel behind him at the consoles.

“That is a more difficult question than you realize, and I am not answering it right now.” He lets off, tone as hard as his look.

Llats is burning with the intrigue. There were rumors, of course, that Naasade was Mandalorian in his own right, long before he and Fett crossed paths – how else would he come by a name like that, after all? Some speculated he was born Mando, others that he’d married in – though there was doubt that _jetiise_ were allowed to marry at all – but there was no substance to the rumors, no concrete facts other than equally vague assumptions coming from the younger _jetii_ , who would deign to answer questions if she deemed them unhostile enough.

Fett, however, is in a mood about it, and won’t give ground. “How’d he die?” He demands. “Is that an easier question, Ben?”

“Oh, fuck you, Jango.” The red-head tosses the datapad down and snarls, and Llats would swear the temperature in the room drops as he clenches his fists and lowers his head, taking a measured breath. “I don’t…” Something skitters across his expression, pained and dreadful and disconcerted. “I don’t actually _know_.” He turns that troubled look on his helmet, reaching out to touch the strange mark scored into the _beskar_. “I just know he is not in this life.”

The look on Fett’s face is most accurately described, Llats decides, as _fuck me I fucked up_. “Then he might-“

“ _Don’t_.” Naasade warns him, sharp and cutting. “This is one of those things I simply _know_ , Jango.”

The _Mand’alor_ nods, backing off. He offers no apology. He never does. He shifts uncomfortably, glaring around the room and at nothing in particular, and then opens his mouth again.

“I’m not having the _other_ discussion right now either, in case you were wondering.” Naasade turns to look at him, one brow cocked. “As much as it may appeal to you to just open up all my wounds at once.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a real _shabuir_.” Fett mutters.

“Glad we can agree.” The Jedi replies primly, his coruscanti posh accent a little more crisp than usual.

 _Ka’re preserve me_ , Llats thinks darkly. He wasn’t in the betting pool that pegged the two of them as bed-mates, but they sure damn well needled at each other like long married partners.

Fett snorts, and some of the tension bleeds out between them, which is delightful, because it also seems to suddenly get a lot easier to breathe. Llats is getting used to the Jedi, but he would swear that he can _feel_ the _otherness_ about him, liked it leeched through his surroundings, carried around his person like a warning.

“Can I at least ask what you’re going to do about the _jed’ika_?” He moves on to less contentious territory.

A cinnamon brow furrows. “Which one?” He inquires. Fett gives him a short look.

“The one with the fucking bruises on her face she’s trying to hide.”

“Keto?” Naasade purses his lips. “She’s fine.”

Fett isn’t the only one who looks up in disbelief at that. Llats knows which kid they’re discussing – she’s a scrappy little thing, compared to the other two he was used to, with quite a lot of gumption for as small as she was. A little would-be _mando jetii_ , he thinks, if she didn’t get the desire beaten out of her before she got that far.

Naasade looks…nonplussed. Almost amused.

“She’s an awful small kid and surrounded by an awful lot of teenagers with more than a little chip on their shoulders over the _jetiise_ in general and you in particular.” Fett elucidates disapprovingly. “And I’d rather you dealt with it before it has to become _my_ problem.”

Naasade sighs. “Jango, I am a _hypervigilant_ jedi master. I am utterly aware, every second of every day, whether or not Serra Keto is in danger, or is even the least bit hurt or upset. I am utterly aware of the slightest hostile or malicious intent anyone on this hunk of rock harbors at any given time.” He crosses his arms, leaning against the holotable. “And disregarding completely my capabilities for a moment, I would like to point out that Serra Keto is not only the Padawan Learner of the Jedi Temple’s Battlemaster, she also engaged in combat a fully fledged Anzati pirate, at the age of _eleven_ , with only a _vibroknife_ , and _survived_.”

He allows them a moment to absorb the implication of what he has said, and smiles.

Llats hates that smile.

“And if someone just decides to fucking shoot her?” Fett refuses to concede just yet. “ _Ade_ that age are more impulse than intelligence. I can’t say they wouldn’t.”

“Jedi younglings learn to deflect blaster bolts as a lesson in swordsmanship and focus. This is usually mastered by the time they’re _seven_.” Naasade informs him blandly. “Which they do while _blindfolded_.”

Fett crosses his arms, looking mulish. He has to know that the jedi is being intentionally blasé just to piss him off.

“I’ll intervene when it escalates to the point that she is forced to remove someone’s limb with the _laser sword_ she carries on her hip.” Naasade finally concedes, looking at Llats, a peculiar kind of glint in his eyes that takes a moment to register as sheer deliberateness. “At that point, I will, of course, ensure she’s disciplined appropriately.” He demurs back to Fett, whose scowl is a thing of beauty.

Naasade knows Llats deals and courts in information. In gossip.

So he’s given him something to say, without having to say it himself at all.

Sideways fucking bastard.

He glances at Fett, who catches his gaze, a similar gleaning there too

 _Both of them_ , Llats thinks, reconsidering this entire encounter. _Sideways fucking bastards_.

To be fair, he rather doesn’t like the bruises the little jedi gets either.

And doesn’t that just _rankle_.


	15. Chapter 15

The door to their darkened suite has no sooner snicked shut than Satine whirls on Obi-Wan.

“Must you have done that? I am trying to make _alliances_ here and _you_ -“

“Your politics are your own business, but I am not a piece of the game you are playing-“

“Game? You think I’m playing a game? I am trying to do what is best for my people-“

“Can we please _calm down_?” Padawan Orikhid insists, far more of a command than a question. It has been a long, frustrating day. The chagrian takes a deep breath after, distinctly uncomfortable at having had to raise his voice at all, and look between both hot-tempered teens, bristling with indignation. He sighs. “This is a…. Mandalorian argument, isn’t it?” The chagrian deflates a little, resignment creeping over his features. Obi-Wan should feel guilty about that. He might. Later. “Swear to me it won’t interfere with our respective responsibilities, and I’ll let you to have at it.”

“As if I-“

“I would never-“

The younger two both cut off, glowering at each other, and then look stiffly past the chagrian.

“This regards a difference in ideologies between Mandalorian citizens.” Satine states with crisp coldness. Well, at least she was still deigning to acknowledge the _Manda Jetii_ as a Mandalorian citizen. Not all was lost.

“Between _friends_.” Obi-Wan counters, hoping to recover a bit more between them. Satine seems almost startled by that, cheeks coloring faintly, and she nods.

Reassured only slightly, but perhaps aware that not letting them have the argument which had been brewing every time their philosophical leanings and personal allegiences came up would only continue to strain their situation and fragment the trust they needed to have to work together effectively, Orikhid nods and elects to retreat his adjoined room, leaving them the common area.

“Satine.” Obi-Wan starts.

“Must you make your blatant disregard for my principles so clear?” She demands, sharp posture hiding hurt.

His back stiffens, and he turns on her with a hard, unfair look.

“I regard _your_ principles with the utmost respect. On the contrary, Satine, it’s _their_ blatant disregard for anything to do with the reality of your situation that I find unabideable.”

“Is that what you think of them? We are trying to enact positive change-“

“No, not _we_. What you believe in and what they want are not the same thing! Can’t you see that? Have you actually _looked_ at what they’ve built? You appoint them merits they don’t deserve, and align yourself with them regardless of the fact that they can’t give you what -.”

“And who decides what merits are deserved? These people have supported me for years! They have given me the only acceptable means through which I could actually-“

“Do you really think your father -“ He snaps.

“I am not my father!” She bites out, taking his words as a reproach they were _not_ meant to be. “When will you understand? I don’t stand for what he stood for. I _can’t_. Do you not see how difficult it is already that I have to live with that? That he would not be…”

“Your father was proud of you.” Obi-Wan lurches, thrown by the sudden turn, and the sharp spike of emotion blotting over his senses. “He did support you, Satine.”

“Do not.” She warns bitterly, a seething, wounded warning. “Do _not_ do that to me, I am not some -“

“Satine, I’m a Jedi. I am not just saying it. I _know_ it.” Obi-Wan insists rigidly, drawing his hands back when he’d rather reach out. “And he wasn’t as opposed to your philosophy as you might believe.”

She scoffs, turning away from him, arms crossed sharply. “As if my father, the _warlord_ , ever contemplated pacificism as anything other than weakness!”

“He believed in peace.” Obi-Wan refutes firmly, embracing that part of himself that was a center of calm, even when he’d rather not be calm. They can’t both be irretractable at the same time. They’d get no where. “He told me once… he told me once that he believed your people should have the choice. Should have the chance.”

 _We’ve never known a life without war_. Duke Kryze had said to him once, with a painful smile on his face. _It makes you wonder what it’s like_.

She falters, face flushed and eyes glimmering with hurt. “He… why would he never tell _me_?”

Obi-Wan shuffles. “From knowing you both… I’d say probably because he wouldn’t have wanted to concede the argument, and I doubt it ever came up when you weren’t arguing.” Perhaps, Obi-Wan considers, also because Duke Kryze had been working side by side with Fett, and he hadn’t wanted to argue the case with _him_. Not in the middle of fighting a war together, not when they had to be absolutely unified as a front.

She laughs, teary and too earnest, and sinks down onto one pale grey sofa, hands twitching out in desperate eloquence, spread to emphasize the dearth of options she saw laid before her.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Her father had asked him that too, once. At the time, it had been too big a question for a scrawny padawan to even attempt to answer.

Obi-Wan scrubs a hand over his hair, which was starting to get shaggy in length.

“Why are you a pacifist, Satine?” He asks in turn, because it was important. Because ones ideals influenced ones choices, and because hers would make or break her, and Mandalore with her. “Leave out the politics, the history, the loyalties. Faith… faith comes from within. Why do _you_ believe in what you do?”

Her hands drop limply, only to curl into the cushions, crinkling the fabric and turning her knuckles bone-white. She looks at him, silver-blue eyes shining, and then away for a long, introspective moment, and then back to him again, muted with memory.

“Because I hate watching my people die. I hate watching the people I love die, and those that survive them grieve. I hate watching them kill each other, and I have been helpless to do nothing but for my entire life.” She murmurs.

“I was no older than five, the first time I was brought to a med bay to say goodbye to my father, his doctors unconfident that he would live through the night.” She says, low voice tight with distress. “Half his body had been just… broken bone and bruises. Even his face. There was blood in his eyes, when he opened them; on his lips and in his teeth, when he smiled for me; dried on his fingertips, when he reached out to hold my hand and touch my hair.” Fingers smooth over the crinkled fabric, putting the cushions to rights, and one hand comes up, barely hovering at her cheek, as if she could grasp his hand in the memory. She drops her hand, and turns her face away. “I flinched. I barely recognized him, and I was as scared _of_ him as I was for him. Bo-Katan got so angry at me, but my father just…stopped reaching for me.”

Her lower lip quivers, grief and regret, and she firms her jaw, stiffening it. “I had nightmares about that for years. _Every time_ they did that to me, I had nightmares for years. Sometimes I still do, where my father is this bloodied, unfamiliar monster – and I am a worse one, for breaking his heart.” Her voice turns angry. At herself. At the world. At _loss_.

“I was six years old, the first time the same people who kept trying to kill my father finally stooped to trying to kill _me_. I was a _child_ who couldn’t even defend myself.” She rages quietly. “I am a pacifist because I want it to _stop_. I want it to end. This horrible, horrible nightmare, this bloodshed, this _fear_. I am sick and tired of this violence. Look at what it has done to us. Look at what it _costs_.”

They would never call her a warrior, but the truth is, Satine Kryze has been a victim of war from the day she was born, and she has spent her entire life fighting to escape it.

“I see it.” Obi-Wan understands, he does. “ But… do you really believe that _this_ is the way?”

“There is no war in Sundari.” She repeats what has been reiterated many times that day. But the repetition does not contain the same bright pride with which it was told to her – instead, her voice was tired and small.

Obi-Wan doesn’t believe it, not for a moment. Perhaps not outright bloodshed, between the security of the dome and the protection provided by the True Mandalorians, but… He thinks the war is just as present here as it was everywhere else in this system. It just took a different form.

There are shades of violence, and not all of it – a great deal of it, in fact – is not physical at all. Sundari may have set aside arms, but underneath the idealism, underneath the tranquil, cleanly surface, he saw in this city a rigid conformity that was entirely its own type of violence.

“There’s not much else either, Satine.” The jedi padawan sighs, tugging at his padawan braid and finally sinking to sit in the sofa opposite her. “I don’t know why these people bother to call themselves Mandalorian at all. They’re trying to erase what it _is_ to be Mandalorian. The Creed, the history, the culture, the customs. They rejected even the _language_ , Satine.”

He’d been unruffled – and unobliging – when they had asked him not to wear his armor. But the first time they corrected his speech, condemning the use of _Mando’a,_ had been startling, and more upsetting the more he considered it.

“It’s not all that I thought it would be.” She admits reluctantly. “But it promised so much.” She hugs herself, thin hands gripping lithe arms tightly, her bracers gleaming in the half-lit room. The outside well and truly dark, and only a few lamps left on. They hadn’t bothered to raise the lights.

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, hangs her head and lets out – well, he’d call it an angry sigh, full of force and disillusion.

“I’m sorry.” Obi-Wan offers sincerely. “I know I don’t have the right to tell you who to be, or how to lead your people, but if you make your public address, your very _first_ public address, as an advocate for the New Mandalorian movement, Satine, then you have to know that half of your people…” He trails off, not wanting to say something too terribly blunt.

“… would never have faith in me again? Would scorn the little girl who disowned her fathers legacy within months of his death?” She opens her eyes, looking at him with wry, resigned ruefulness. She shakes her head, and looks out the black window. “I know.” She whispers quietly. “I know.”

She rings her hands and then laces them together, bowing her head till her brow reached her knuckles, supported there in frustration. Fly-aways of silver-blonde hair tickled at her collar and brushed at her cheeks. Her hair was getting longer too. She never wore a bucket, but she still kept her hair traditionally short enough to be worn free under one. A silent, visible respect to a part of her culture she did not partake in.

She offers the room another angry sigh.

“ _Kyr’stad_ isn’t the way.” She renounces. “The _Haat Mando’ade_ , for all that they aren’t so imperialistically ambitious, are still too unyielding. If the New Mandalorians are also unacceptable…” She makes an unintelligible, unhappy sound that it rather utterly unladylike. “A person is not born when they come into this world. They are born when they discover who they truly are. When they make choices and accept their consequences. I don’t _like_ my choices.” She recites, voice dropping to a whisper as she struggled, as she wrestled with herself, with her principles, and with the responsibilities which made a young pacifist so much more than just herself.

Obi-Wan feels something brimming, in her, in himself, a teasing whisper of the spark of something promising. “Then choose differently.” He offers, leaning in to the surety the Force offered him.

She looks up, glowering at his from under pale brows.

“You are asking me to attempt to forge a compromise between irreconcilable ways of life.”

“I am asking you to truly consider how to give your people – all of your people, _even the ones you hate_ – a better future. A future they find worth having. That you find worth having.”

“Don’t quote me back at myself, Obi-Wan Kenobi.” She scowls, but her anger is dissipating in the Force, turning into something new, dazzling and thrilling and utterly daunting as she truly considers abandoning everything she has worked towards and starting over. “ _Mando’ade_ are _terrible_ at compromise. Even my father couldn’t get-“ She keeps denying it, but he can feel her resolve strengthening, bright possibilities, each more difficult than the last, unfurling before her.

But she is a daughter of Mandalore. Let it never be said they balked from a challenge.

“Satine.” He stops her, tugging down his smile lest he sour her good mood by being too pleased with this turn of events. He doesn’t want his pride in his friend to be taken as patronization. “You are not your father.”

She lets out a soft puff of air and then stares at him for a good long while, something inscrutable behind that fey, piercing gaze.

“You look good in Clan Kryze colors, you know.” She offers eventually, before looking away, much calmer, much more settled, thoughts turning over with alacrity, plans being made, lines of history rewritten.

Obi-Wan blinks, looking down at himself, in blue and white and lilac, and blushes.

“Erm… thank you.” He looks back up, and there is a teasing curl of a smirk at the corner of her mouth, pleased.

It fades shortly. “If I am to reject the sponsorship I have been offered, we are going to have leave Sundari much sooner than planned.” She says aloud.

“We had to leave anyways.” Obi-Wan consoles with simple pragmaticism. “We have a mission to accomplish, if I recall.”

She shoots him a look, stern and full of exasperation. “Because I have committed myself to espionage _and_ to reforming the social divide of Mandalore.”

Obi-Wan grins and open his mouth.

“Don’t you say a word, Obi-Wan Kenobi.” She mutters. “I _know_.”


	16. Chapter 16

Satine has slept little. This is nothing new, but for once it is not grief and anxiety keeping her up. Long after she has insisted Obi-Wan go rest, she stayed awake with her thoughts.

She has debated and argued over the nature of pacifism for years. She has believed, utterly and truly, that she must be as unyielding in her non-violence as _Kyr’stad_ was in their overt violence.

In this, The New Mandalorians have supported her utterly, helping her make connections, providing her somewhere to turn when she could no longer stand the constant disagreement with her family and her kinsman. Their movement was ultimately based on the ideal that if there were simply enough of them to stand down arms, to refuse to fight… that the fighting would stop. That even _Kyr’stad_ would be forced to back down, or leave.

And she has ignored the flaw in that logic. To back down in the face of non-violence requires honor, required the belief that they would harm themselves by harming someone who refused to fight them.

The Death Watch may claim otherwise, but their actions have proven that they do not embody that sort of honor.

Obi-Wan has explained to her before, that there is a reason the Jedi are not pacifists. That all over the galaxy there are people who are defenseless, who are oppressed, who are desperate. And if the Jedi did not fight for them, no one else would. And if no one fought for them, they would die, they would be crushed beneath the boot of organizations and societies such as _Kyr’stad_ , or Zygerria, or the Black Sun syndicate, or any other number of tyrants.

She learned to defend herself so that other people wouldn’t have to fight for her, wouldn’t come to harm in her name the next time an assassin came for her.

It’s bitter to accept, but if she truly believes that to be the way, then she has to acknowledge that the _Haat Mando’ade_ were fighting and dying to protect the New Mandalorians, that if Fett abandoned them…. Their pacifism would save no one from Death Watch.

There way of life was not _wrong_. But neither was it _enough_.

Satine buries her face in her hands, sitting on the edge of her bed, still in her dayclothes despite the fact that it was likely nearing dawn. She should change into something fresh – she’d have to, in order to give her public address later.

Half-written notes on flimsy adorn her bedcovers and the nightstand. She still hasn’t even properly outlined what she is going to say. She is afraid to _decide_ what to say.

Because she knows now that she will not be speaking out as a proponent of the New Mandalorians. And without their familiar support, without their rhetoric to fall back on… she feels herself very alone.

A new way forward sounded so bold and full of promise, when she was speaking with Obi-Wan, but she imagines standing on a platform, addressing an entire _sector_ and trying to convince them that she is someone they can believe in…

Someone knocks on her door, a light rap that has her lifting her head.

“Miss Duchess, you have a visitor.” Padawan Orikhid calls softly, sounding drowsily alert. Satine blinks into the dark gloom of her room, quickly tucks back errant locks of hair, and slips off the bed to see who’s entered their suite.

There’s a shuffle on the other side, and by the time Satine reaches the door, a familiar stocky twi’lek is marching inside without much care for polite courtesy.

Well, not entirely familiar.

Satine blinks in happy surprise to see Sha’me Betoya, her green skinned so-called dancing tutor, who instead of her usual sleeveless body-suit and light armor is swathed in the pastel fashions of Sundari. They had been trying to meet up, but had never made their rendezvous, and Obi-Wan had ensured that tracking Satine was exceptionally difficult.

“ _Su cuy’gar, Redal’ika_.” _Still alive, Little Dancer_ , the brawny twi’lek female greets brusquely, and then sweeps her into a firm embrace. The hug hurts a little, because Sha’me is apparently still wearing her armor under those clothes, but it is also a comfort that is painfully unexpected and exactly what she needed. She clings back to the older woman, feeling indescribably, relieving safe for a moment.

Sha’me tolerates it longer than Satine had expected, before tightening the grip on the young _Jorad’par’s_ shoulders and pushing her back to look her over better. “You’re alive. Are you well?”

Satine almost huffs at the remark, fingers wrapped over Sha’me’s strong forearms, the womans presence proving quite grounding. “No.” She replies honestly, feeling steadier for her mentors presence.

“What do you need?”

“Tell me what I should do?” Satine pleads, in a moment of weakness.

Sha’me arches a brow. “That’s behind us, _Jorad’par_.”

Satine nods, looking up and aside. “I know.” She acknowledges, looking back quickly to study the older womans face, wondering how it is so easy for her to simply elevate Satine into one half of the rulership of Mandalore, and neither resent or pity the fact that she is still a seventeen year old girl.

“What do you need?” The True Mandalorian twi’lek repeats, letting her hands slide off Satine’s shoulders so she can cross her arms, both resolute and challenging – not in the sense of defiance, but in the sense that she expects Satine to pull herself together, and take charge.

Satne takes a breath. “I have six hours to put together an address as the Speaker of Mandalore.” Satine informs her. “Which means I have six hours to figure out how to prove to my people that I can lead them in a way that has meaning. _All_ of them.”

For once, Satine seems to have surprised her teacher. “Are you… are you setting aside pacifism?”

“ _No_.” Satine rejects strongly, holding viciously tight to her principles. Desperately tight, aware of how fragile they might prove to be. “No. But I am setting aside the illusion that my pacifism can save my people.” Her chest hurts, and her eyes burn, and she debates whether it is better to mourn her ideals now or after. “Putting myself above my responsibility to my people is a luxury I can no longer afford.”

Sha’me Betoya looks her in the eye, taking a step back.

“When your father was a young man…” She says, startling Satine utterly. “ He did not have half your courage.”

Satine is too utterly bewildered to feel either flattered or affronted. Sha’me shakes her head, green lekku swinging slightly before she irritably yanks a pastel scarf off of them. “It’s been a very long time, _Redal’ika_ , since anyone believed that Mandalore was more than one faction or another. Since anyone looked at this mess we’ve made of ourselves, and saw _all_ our people as _their_ people.”

“You don’t think I’m being too naïve?” Satine questions.

“What I think does not matter as much as what you choose to do. Either we destroy the factions we don’t agree with, we banish them, or we unite. I’m old _Haat Mando’ade_. My vengeance would see _Kyr’stad_ dead to a man. But you aren’t me, and I am not standing in your position.”

Satine nods, crossing her arms. Sha’me sighs. “I never did understand, Satine, how you could never want vengeance. Even now?” She looks the girl over, as if she is at once a marvel and a conundrum.

Satine’s brow furrows, and she thinks over her answer, rather than snapping out her usual reply. She worries her lip, watching the gloom in her room start to lighten as day breaks.

Does she want vengeance?

It’s not that simple.

Yes, she wants dead those that took her father from her. Yet she hates the idea of taking a life, of becoming part of someone elses nightmares, like the ones that have haunted her since childhood. The two feeling juxtapose, snarling and clawing at each other inside her heart. It is this spiral her people can’t escape. They kill her father, she kills them, someone comes to kill her, and on and on and on. It makes her tired, the endlessness of it, the pointlessness she sees in it.

But vengeance as a concept is a part of her culture, is as deeply ingrained in her nature as anything else. She just doesn’t want it against _people_. Her battle has never been in blood. She wants vengeance against concepts and ideas and injustices. She wants vengeance for her people against the destruction reigned across their worlds, against their nightmares, and their losses, and against death itself.

“I want vengeance.” Satine admits, to Sha’me and to herself. Pacifism has been her righteousness, she thinks. But it is becoming apparent to her that righteousness is not enough. This, maybe this can be more than righteousness. Maybe this can be _just_. “I want vengeance for Mandalore.”

Death Watch wanted to usurp history. The New Mandalorians wanted to erase it. The True Mandalorians wanted revenge for it. Satine wanted to learn from history. She wanted to do better. She wanted her people to do better.

Sha’me smiles, surprised and pleased and unusually soft. “Now that, _Jorad’par_ – you can accomplish a lot with a desire like that.” She approves.

~*~

Mandalorians, as a people, tend to be noisy. In volume, in action, in expression.

Transports and fighters line the hanger, fueled and ready for takeoff; pilots and _verde_ are at hand, geared up in full _beskar’gam_ , armed to the teeth and waiting for whatever is about to happen.

Over it all, there is a tense, anticipatory hush.

A projector is set up at the far end of the hanger, waiting for the broadcast to start. While it could be streamed directly into their helmets, they wanted to be on alert to any change in their surroundings, any signal to set them into motion.

“If _Kyr’stad’s_ going to try something-“

“ – now would be the time.” Ben agrees, finishing Fett’s low mutter, both of them perched on the lowered wing of Fett’s _kom’rk_ class starfighter, which gave them both quick access to the ship and a ready platform for an address if need be.

“ _Broadcast is up_.” Llats Ward reports over the comms, monitoring the communications from the War Room’s control center.

The projector stutters into life and color, revealing an image of a podium on a transparisteel balcony, silver gilt, crystalline doors framed behind it, under a neutrally pale sky.

Satine Kryze approaches the podium, so pale she may well be made of porcelain, her hair clasped out of her face by a an artful, lapis blue headdress. Gone is her mourning cloak, and her blue and teal skirts and bodice. In their place, her polished beskar braces gleam over silver threaded sleeves, a fine lilac shawl covers her neck to knees, pinned at one shoulder with a ruby red clasp. Maroon leggings just peak out between the hem of the lilac shawl and the tops of her black boots with their polished beskar greaves.

Ben isn’t sure if his lips are trying to twitch towards a smile or a scowl.

He can see Obi-Wan and Orikhid and one other person as grey-cloaked shadows at the edge of the screen, and he takes in the lack of New Mandalorian banners behind or on the podium with new interest. 

He has warred with himself, over Satine Kryze. Over the whole, horrible familiarity of this situation. Over putting his padawan on this path, over intercepting Satine in hers.

His history with Satine in his own life was one of heartbreak and convictions. He has argued and argued with himself every time Obi-Wan has ever breathed her name, about whether or not he has the right to try and alter their fates, to intercede in their relationship, to try and stop them from falling in love, if they were destined for it. He has a horrible suspicion they were destined for it. Not the same love, not with as different as their lives had already become, as _they_ had already become, but with just as much potential for heartbreak.

He has also argued with himself over whether or not to attempt to influence Satine’s political aspirations, to prevent the disarmament and eventually dissolution of Mandalore. Ultimately, with Fett returned to the cause and fore, he had decided it would be unnecessary, and unkind.

And likely, for himself, a very painful experience.

But one change begets another. The Satine Kryze he is looking at right now is not the one he knew. He has no idea what’s going to happen next, but he was damningly intrigued.

Silver for integrity; lilac purple for Clan Kryze and for tradition; a touch of blue for reliability; a touch of true red for honoring a parent; black for justice, and maroon… maroon for power. It’s an interesting choice – a bold one. She had the right to wear it, of course, as the Head of House Kryze and Clan Kryze, as the _Jorad’par_ , but the choice to wear it meant to _claim_ that power, to _declare_ it for everyone else to see.

Ben reaches out for his padawan, through the master-learner bond, even knowing they’re ridiculously far apart for getting any feedback from it other than the general sense that each other were alive. Although… it’s getting easier to get hints of more than that, he thinks. Even outside of focused mediation.

He gets nothing from his padawan at the moment. Likely, Obi-Wan is maintaining a calm focus himself, keeping alert to his present surroundings.

Satine lifts her chin on the projection, silver-blue eyes cool and piercing.

“For those of you who would not recognize me,” She begins. “I am Satine Kryze, and until such time as a proper election can be held, I am your Speaker for Mandalore. I imagine there are many among us who are disappointed that I am not my father. I imagine there are many among us who are _not_.”

Someone near them in the hanger snorts. There is a wryness to the edge of Satine’s mouth that suggests that she expected such a reaction when she planned that statement.

“My father was loved, and my father was hated.” She states. “It is the nature of the role he served. But I have seen that regardless of which side people were on, it could be agreed that Adonai Kryze served Mandalore with faith and honor. I may not be the _Jorad’alor_ of the _Mando’ade_ for anything more than an interim, but it is my hope and my endeavor to serve you with the same integrity and commitment as those who have marched before me.”

She looks down, reverent for the dead, for the past, gathering herself to move forward. When she looks up again, those who knew Duke Kryze will recognize the same steel of spirit in her eyes.

Ben isn’t aware entirely of the hand he’d clasped over his mouth, but there is a proud sort of grief in his chest for the young woman. However it happened, she is _stronger_ at this moment, than she had been in another life. More sure of herself. More certain of her love for her people. She lacks the brittleness he remembers.

“I cannot rightly say that never in our history has Mandalore been so divided – we have quite a _long_ history.” Another dash of wry humor. Someone had to have helped her write this speech, he thinks. It’s a touch too sardonic for a girl her age, no matter how well spoken and well educated. “But it is a bitter reality that we _are_ a broken people, that we have turned against each other and lost faith – in our brothers and sisters, in our Creed, in ourselves - and that today that divide is deeper and bloodier than it has been in living memory.” She pauses again, just for a breath. “I would like to believe that we could simply end this, now, before the damage we do to our people, to our planets, is irrecoverable in addition to being irredeemable. But I fear I know our people too well.”

She looks over the crowd below that the broadcast feed barely skims over, at least until the camera vantage shifts to a higher viewpoint, taking in the balcony and the populace. The milling crowd in Sundari is almost indistinguishable, but her eyes rake through the cameras as well. She is not speaking to Sundari. She is speaking to _everyone_ watching. The ones who admire her, who loathe her, who could be no more indifferent, who want her dead.

Her shoulders are square, her jaw firm. Her posture embraced by defiance, not unlike her sister’s, at times.

“We are going to get worse, _do_ worse, before we get better, try to _be_ better; before we finally find that we have had _enough_ , before we get _through_ this, and I –“

Dull explosions snap through the plaza below her, scattering a frightened crowd, rousing screams and sending every man, woman, and other gendered being in the fighter hanger half a system away rocketing to their feet.

The Force twinges, twisting in a manner that makes Ben feel unbalanced, like he’s being pulled in two directions. His hand finds Fett’s arm, gripping him tight between the seams of the armor, keeping him from leaping into action. “Wait.” He appeals, shaking his head and trying to follow the warning he’s getting.

The jedi masters gaze rakes the feed for clues. White smoke and sparks had burst through the crowds, but its dispersing quickly, and the bodies on the ground are moving, getting back up. Most are just wounded, not dead. Not an attack - a distraction. Flash-bangs with a little extra show-power.

A holoprojection flickers into being, larger than life, above the scorch marks and cleared space, the citizens of Sundari cowering beneath it.

 _Kyr’stad_ is easy to identify as an organization by their armor. Individuals are more difficult, so Ben cannot simply say who it is who has decided to take center stage in the scene that appears, but he has a suspicion. He and Fett and Kryze before them have been trying to root this particular womp-rat out for quite some time.

Death Watch was too organized and directive to not have a leader. It was about time they deigned to introduce themselves.

Centerstage in heavyweight armor, blue and grey over black, is a towering example of a man who removes his helmet to reveal a rigid face and shoulder length black hair.

Beside him, Jango jerks and freezes like he’s been shot, and his anger blisters out in a black, cold, acidic eruption of malicious intent that makes Ben flinch and release him. For someone not particularly Force-Sensitive, Fett’s emotions can be painfully potent.

“ _Mand’alor_ -“ their comms chirp, and Fett snaps at Llats to be silent.

“Greetings, little girl.” The _Kyr’stad_ mando sneers down at her. “Greetings, _Mando’ade_.” The voice over for the projection booms. Obi-Wan and Orikhid can be seen immediately moving to Side, even if the threat is not actually present, but Satine herself steps around the podium with grace and dignity, to stand before her unwelcome interloper. “I am-“

“The _coward_ who ordered my fathers death, I presume?” Satine’s voice cuts through, cold and unforgiving.

The mans eyes narrow, jaw clenching.

“You father was _weak_.” He declares, neither accepting nor denying her accusation. Ben wonders, not for the first time, how much of a hand and a say Death Watch actually had in that assassination. How deep in with the Sith they actually were. If they even truly knew what their allies truly _are_.

“So weak that you wouldn’t even face him? That you had an assassin take his life from the shadows rather than present yourself as a _real_ challenger?” Satine lunges her accusations at the end of his statement, giving him no respite to take control from her. “Tell me, are you even brave enough to face _me_? I’d say not, considering you aren’t even _here_.”

She stalks towards the edge of the balcony, towards the projection, righteous and unafraid, a pale flush of anger on her cheeks and a cold fury in her eyes. “Well? _Declare yourself_!” She demands.

For all the anger and the tension building in his body, Ben still wants to snort at how effectively she has countered his _grand_ entrance.

“Tor Vizla, little girl.” He intones blackly, and the projection expands behind him, revealing three more Death Watch mandos – and three people on their knees with _Kyr’stad_ blasters to their skulls, _beskar’gam_ battle dirty, faces bloodied, hands locked behind their heads. It takes a moment to identify their armor, their allegiance, as Clan Kryze. “And you should show some respect to your rightful _Mand’alor_.”

The color drains out of her face, what little there was. Vizla sneers, as she takes a moment to look each of her kinsman in the eyes. One of them looks away in shame, one shakes her head minutely, and the last just looks sorry. Satine’s gaze snaps back up towards Vizlas.

“I am not a little girl. I am Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore, and the only _Mand’alor_ I recognize is Jango Fett. If you want that title, you can take it from him. _If_ you can pry the darksaber from the bloody fingers of his ghost.” It’s a near savage declaration, for all that it is delivered with the sae cutting cold tones of authority that had made Adonai Kryze such a dignified speaker.

A heavy jaw rocks back, hair tossing as Tor Vizla laughs. “You’ve got spirit, _girl_ , but more is the disgrace. All that passion, and you demean it by refusing to acknowledge where your spirit comes from. Your father must have been so ashamed, at such a waste. You refuse to fight for your people, now, you won’t even beg for their lives? You’d let good men and women die for your contemptuous principles? How _noble_.” He drawls cruelly.

That is all this is, Ben thinks, a show of cruelty, a wrenching of the knife. He will say the Duke was weak. That his daughter is weak. That his House and Clan is weak. He will crush them, to instill fear in the other clans. To show them what Death Watch does when you defy them.

It is the same cruel demonstration they attempted to make of Duke Kryze – to publicly prove that they cannot protect their people.

It’s a wretched, rigged game Vizla’s playing. Satine cannot win. Whether she begs or not, her kin will die. And if she begs – if Satine Kryze, _the Speaker for Mandalore_ , lowers herself to beg, in front of the whole of the _Mando’ade_ …

“Kalevala.” Ben breathes, closing his eyes in anger. _Kyr’stad_ had struck, and they had struck Kalevala.

Death Watch had barely even had a presence there – there had been no intel, no indication… the failure sinks deep.

Fett swears in his helmet, and then into the comms. Ben grits his teeth. “They can be gone long before we get there.” He spits. If _Kyr’stad_ hit Clan Kryze, then they had to have hit Kalevala hard, fast, and with force. The clans there were old and established and weren’t to be trifled with. Even the so called neutral clans would defend their own homes. _Kyr’stad_ can take one city, for a span of time, but they’d never keep that planet. They’d have to do their damage and retreat.

“They are at Kalevala _now_.” Jango retorts viciously. “ _We_ are going to take Concord Dawn.”

Ben nods, a grim, gleaming acknowledgement. Kyr’stad would have had to weaken their forces there. They landed a blow Congratulations to them. Fett was going to make sure they damn well paid for it.

“Would you actually spare their lives?” Satine throws the challenge right back at Vizla.

He smirks. “Kneel and find out. I can be generous.” He makes no promises.

Satine offers a glacial look through the holo, cold and resolute. “You are a _liar_ in addition to being a _coward_ , Tor Vizla.” She declares, head held high. “ _Ade Kryze_ -“

Her people are executed before she can finish offering them a last rite of solace, a last acknowledgement of their bravery and loyalty. Spectators in the crowd below flinch and cry out, adding to the cold horror of the display.

Vizla crosses his heavy arms, scowling down at the girl. She blinks twice, and twice again, but she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of tears or quivering lips. She does not cower.

“ _You_ call me a coward? You, sitting in glass towers, letting others die in your name while you disparage their honor and skill, while you decry and belittle the history and glory of the Mando warrior way. Adonai lacked strength, cowing to petty politics and the _dar’madna aruetiise_ you sit beside now, but you –“ He scoffs. “ - _Satine Kryze,_ you don’t deserve the blood running through your veins-“

“My blood is my fathers blood, and you have no right to so casually address his name.” Satine comes toe to edge on the balcony serving as her stage, Obi-Wan and Orikhid painfully still behind her, though Ben’s padawan looks in mind to use his lightsaber regardless. The young duchess rips the ruby clasp keeping her lilac shawl pinned from her shoulder and opens her palm with the pin, grimacing at the sudden flash of pain, but too incensed to really feel it. The spill of scarlet is startling against her near porcelain skin, against her silver sleeves. Her shawl flutters, not quite falling free. Her chest rises and falls with passion, and she holds her hand out over the balcony, at Vizla, for all the worlds to see as it spills. “My blood is the blood of Clan Kryze, and the blood of a thousand generations of _Mando’ade_ before me.”

She clenches her fist, stemming the flow and lowering it back to her side. It continues to drip through her fingers. She looks past Visla, to all the people watching.

“My blood is your blood. Our blood.” She declares, looks back up at Vizla’s projection, and points to the crowd below. “I share it with them.” She points at the _Kyr’stad_ mandos behind Vizla, looking them in the eyes too. “I even share it with you. Have you not seen enough of it spilled?” She demands, and the cry echoes.

Tor Vizla sneers, tearing her focus back to him, refusing to let this impudent child gain ground with his _verde_. “Not yet.”

Satine’s eyes flash, and she reaches and finally tears her shawl free, to hang loose at her back and reveal the raw polished beskar breastplate she wore beneath. To reveal, emblazoned across the rounded plate, a trinity of Mandalorian lilies, the symbol of the Mandalore’s prosperity, in bright, burning gold.

The hanger, which had been in such motion, Ben being drawn more and more into it, hitched into a fraction of stillness, processing what she has just declared. Ben can see it flash involuntarily across Vizla’s face as well.

“I have.” She declares. “It is well known that I am not the warrior my ancestors were. But I _will not_ stand aside while men like you make a mockery of what it truly means to be _Mando’ade_. I have wanted nothing more my entire life than peace and prosperity for our people. What do you have to offer that’s better than that?” Satine demands.

“I offer to make our people strong again. To give them a chance to prove who they are. To return Mandalore to the glory-“

“ _Kote lo'shebs'ul narit_.” _You can keep your glory_. Satine snaps, and someone trips, missing their grab for a ladder. Others snigger. Ben switches the holo feed into his helmet, dropping into Fett’s vessel. He chokes between pride and exasperation. The literal understanding of that phrase is scornful, defiant, and a touch formal. The colloquial understanding, however, was a bit more vulgar. “What glory is there in dead worlds and dead children? That’s all you have to offer; death and vanity, and I find it pathetic. Those who follow you are deceived, Tor Vizla, by the honor and prestige your House once held.” She looks away from him, a blatant, silent dismissal, and addresses her people beyond him. “We are not born when we come in to this world. We are born when we discover who we are. When we make choices, and accept the consequences. Look around you, look inside yourself. In the days to come, we are all going to learn much about ourselves. So ask now – is this who you are?” Her voice rises, a call to greater purpose. “ And then ask yourself again; is this who you truly want to be?”

Tor Vizla tries to cut through her voice, but static pops and snaps, and the projection loses volume. Ben idly wonders, as he straps into the pilots seat, if that was his padawans handiwork or someone elses.

Satine isn’t finished.

“For those of you who find the answers to those questions dissatisfactory, and ask yourself _what else is there_? - know this; I take no side but _Mandalore’s_ , and I am willing to find that out together.”

She takes a breath, one that sees to encompass her entire being, opens her mouth and then closes it. It would be traditional, now, to sign off with a declaration such as _cun oyay_ – our lives for Mandalore.

She doesn’t.

She raises her chin, stares through the camera, and nods with respect, with acknowledgement, to all those watching. “ _K’oyacyi_.” The Duchess commands, and the broadcast cuts out.

 _Stay Alive_.

The engines fire, and within moments they are in the sky.

“Did you follow that?” Ben asks Fett, wondering if he’d watched the feed in his bucket as Ben had. Fett was in the copilots chair, tracking coordinate grids on his side of the console for their hyperspace jump.

Ben gets an affirmative grunt. He watches the stars blur into dazzling streaks of blue-white. He thinks about – all of it. The presentation, the rally after the interruption, the execution, the minor bloodletting, the taunting derision served on both sides.

“That was foolish and dramatic.” He remarks mildly.

Jango makes a hard noise, bucket turning in his direction. “Have you _met_ our people?”

Ben hums affirmingly in response, focus casting ahead in anticipation. Fett snorts, and Ben can feel his heartbeat start to drum with adrenaline, can feel the contradictory way Jango’s entire being burns hotter and fiercer, and yet his presence calms with battle-focus. Ben lets his senses ride with it, settling into the same mind-set, the same driven energy.

 _Finally_ , they’re both thinking.

“ _Mark ready; exiting hyperspace in three, two –“_


	17. Chapter 17

| _The Yinchorri believe that if they are strong enough to take something and hold on to it, it is, by rights, theirs_.|

What Mace has on the datapad before him is a collection of disparate reports and observations, all undated and quite specifically vague. Supposedly, none of these documents had been written by Master Ben Naasade. It was merely by his hand that they had been added to the archives.

It’s a terribly good job of letting them know exactly what they might need to know without so much as alluding to the fact that this knowledge is gained through the experience of a time traveler.

Mace is satisfied that they have this knowledge, that it is on hand even if Naasade isn’t, but there is a niggling thought in the back of his mind that Ben couldn’t have done this predicting he’d be out of contact in Mandalore. He’d done this in the event that he died before events proceeded this far.

Mace can’t quite decide if that is good caution or pessimism.

“That explains the mindset,” Mace mutters to himself. “ not the impetus.”

The reports provide plenty of hints and clues and allusions, but not a straightforward narrative. That would have been… too obvious, and Ben was damn good at covering his tracks when he felt the need. Or when he felt that there were some things his peers must discover for themselves, to eliminate doubt.

Some of the reports regarding a few of the completely fictitious conflicts between various parities and the Yinchorri implied a third hand guiding their actions. Not all of them, and not outright defined, and that third parties motivations were never addressed, but Mace can see what Ben meant to imply.

That this uprising may have been motivated by the Sith. To what end, they can’t know, but to have their hand in it at all is more than enough to be getting on with at the moment, Mace thinks.

In his hands is everything he needs to guide this conflict to it’s swiftest, least costly resolution – now that it is confirmed, from outside sources, that the Yinchorri _were_ their enemy.

The Yinchorri do not appear to be great strategists. There is a strict delineation in their society between the warrior class and the leadership of the intelligenista. The entirety of their war effort came down to the guidance of their High Command. If High Command could be negotiated with, or detained, this war would subside post haste.

However, their enemy is not oblivious to their own weaknesses. High Command will not make themselves easy to find.

Which is likely why there is a ‘historical record’ alluding to a ‘fallback stronghold’ utilized in past ‘ages untold’ deep within the system of Yinchor. Not on their homeworld, but on Uhaniyah, a small planetary body much closer to Yinchor’s star, which held a significant position of spiritual power in the Yinchorri’s old religion.

 _Highly fortified and zealously defended_ had been the casual remarks Naasade had seen fit to add.

Turning his friends splurge of data into a proper briefing was a headache.

And still, having a discreet, direct objective to suppress this conflict did not mean it would be simple or easy. They would have to traverse into the system of Yinchor, make their way past the bulk of the systems forces, lay siege to their sacred world in order to detain the members of its High Command, _convince_ said members to tell their people to stand down, and _then_ negotiate with the Senate on how to deal with the Yinchorri in the aftermath.

Formidable enough objectives, even for Jedi.

Made more so by the nature of the Yinchorri themselves. As a species, the reptilians were easily of the height and half again of your average humanoid, with twice the bulk. Furthermore, they had an incredibly high threshold for heat and pain, a natural immunity to telepathic and empathic influences of the Force, and were one of the systems were cortoisis was freely sourced. Overall, it was as if they were hand picked to oppose the Jedi Knights.

Mace sighed, rubbing his brow. There were other reports still, the implications frightening but the warning frustratingly unclear.

| _These turtle-heads don’t have a concept of non-combatant, of by-standers or collateral. The enemy is the enemy, one and all, bar none. Killing the enemy, they believe, is good. Killing their offspring, even better. So don’t go to the battlefield and think the ones you’ve left behind are safe. They’ll take the fight to wear it will hurt you, wherever it will hurt you, and hurt you the worst_.| Supposedly the transcript of a deck officer of some mercenary army two hundred years ago. He suspects Ben means for them to expect an attack on Coruscant, perhaps on the Senate, or on Judicial Command, or even on the Temple. There is another report to suggest more heavily an attack on the Temple, in that an attack on a religious sanctum was exactly what said report entailed. He’s forewarned the rest of the Council, but he’s not sure how much else they can actually do, with information a non-descript as that. The security of Coruscant was already heavy, and the Temple guarded. This would hardly be the only enemy to pose a threat to their home. Others had tried and failed.

Forewarned is forearmed, Mace thinks and draws himself away from brooding over his datapad. Captain Dafa-Neu of the Besh-42 Advanced Tactical Support unit is still sulking by the navigation terminal, displeased that he and his people were being left out of the scout recon mission.

Mace glances at the chrono, and keys his comm. “Master Yaddle?” He inquires.

“ _Away, we nearly are_.” The elder Master replies a touch impatiently. He wonders who among her counterparts has aggravated her. She, her padawan, Master Dooku and _his_ padawan are to take a small stealth vessel into the Yinchorri system to gather intelligence on the positioning of the Yinchorri fleet and forces, as well as the current planetary alignment. The Galactic Republic, unfortunately, last charted this system over five hundred years ago. Accurate intelligence that star-map does _not_ provide.

The risk involved in this assignment ought to be minimal, but Mace has a pressing ache in his skull that has very little to do with his present tension, and very much to do, he thinks, with how unclear this entire situation is in the Force, cloudy and indistinct.

~*~

“Don’t get stepped on, kiddo.” Padawan Vosa teases, and Tsui is abruptly lifted from the ground and swung into the small compartment of the stealth shuttle. He makes a distressed warble, and turns a betrayed look on the elder padawan.

“I do not appreciate being moved without my consent.” He says firmly.

The bone-blonde pouts and looks askance. “You’d appreciate getting kicked in the back even less.” She mutters, and then bounces up behind him as her master appears. Tsui gets himself out of the way with due haste, and Padawan Vosa flops into the copilots seat, sprawling half across the console.

“ _Decorum_.” Her master snaps.

Washed out blue eyes roll irritably, and she lazily drags herself off the console, slouching into the chair instead. Tsui understands that Master Dooku and Komari Vosa have a complicated Master-Padawan relationship, but he did not quite expect the sharp bitter thread of distaste that bound the together as much as it seemed to drive them apart.

His own master ascends into the shuttle with a practiced leap, leaving behind a rather pushy and dissatisfied Besh-42 pilot. Tsui feels a little sympathy, as the pilot had clearly been excited at the prospect of flying with Jedi only to be denied, but he understands his masters reasoning, even if others might not.

It would be easier to get a sense of the Yinchorri and the movements of the system and the Forc without the distraction and noise of an untrained mind. Her fellow Jedi could and would quiet themselves, but the majority of non-sensitives didn’t quite understand how to make their own presence quiet, still, and small. It was more difficult for them, when they could not truly grasp that field of energy upon which they were being asked to manage themselves.

With the Force as hard to read at the moment as it was, even Master Yaddle required no distractions.

Tsui has never felt the Force like this before, hazy and obscured with darkness. It was different than the static indistinction of the Senate Dome. It almost felt….deliberate.

Master Dooku takes the pilots seat, and Tsui blinks at his own master when a small green hand gently grasps his shoulder.

He’s outgrowing her, he realizes. They’ve been eye to eye for awhile now, but that will change. Aleen don’t grow in the same manner of humanoids – it’ll take him years longer to reach his full height than his friends, mostly because his skull and brain tubes will continue to develop long after the rest of his body has decided to stop – and he doesn’t grow in random, frightful spurts the way they do. His maturation is both more gradual and more steady.

He wonders if she will miss having a student who is, for once, smaller than she is. The thought amuses him somewhat.

“Ready, we are.” Master Yaddle informs Master Dooku, as the doors seals shut. She and Tsui move to quickly strap in, as Dooku fires up the engines and pulls the vessel out of dock. Even to Tsui, the vessel is quite, the vibration of its engines limited to a subtle hum more than a true tremor.

They hover, just outside the cruiser, for a minute, engaging the stealth mechanisms. Not much changes from the inside perspective, but Master Dooku and Padawan Vosa seem satisfied, and the cruiser confirms that they’ve gone dark.

Literally, inside the cabin. The only light comes from the dimmest illumination provided by the functions on the consoles.

There is a settled sort of focus, between the four Jedi, as they skip into hyperspace, making the minutes-short jump into the shadow of a dust band beyond on the Yinchorri systems outlying gas giants. The hull gives a stomach churning shudder, before falling back to a subtle hum. Tsui blinks in concern, and Master Dooku shoots his padawan a sharp look. She glowers back fiercely, as if denying fault. Tsui doesn’t really think there was fault. They’re fairly close to the gas giant, and while he is no engineer, it would not surprise him that the vessel may have needed a moment to compensate for the sudden acceleration of gravitational pull.

They don’t speak, sitting in a hovering, controlled tension as they skim carefully along the dust-band, out o the shadow of the planet, following just enough of an elliptical that any sensors not fooled by the stealth tech on the vessel would mistake the as nothing more than an erratic meteorite.

“Too much debris.” Padawan Vosa whispers. They probablydon’t need to – whisper, that is – but it feels like they should. While there _is_ technology to detect sound resonance in space – to detect vessels like theirs – it’s barely more than theoretical, and of the few working model tests that have been reported upon, its range is incredibly limited.

Master Dooku guides the ship a little further out of the dust band.

Master Yaddle bows her heard, ears perked, eyes closing in focus as she reaches through the system, lips pursing, wrinkles pinching.

Tsui doesn’t have her skill, but he quiets his thoughts, quiets his feelings, and lets himself merely observe, leaves himself open to whatever the Force might hint to him. He drifts his gaze over the wide field of stone and ice, watching light shift and shadow as they turned. He can see five moons on this side of the gas giant alone, one a vibrant blue, pulsing with _warmth-life_ that suggests a teeming water surface. He tries not to tense, wondering how they came so close to an _occupied_ planet. They aren’t that close, but the planet, he sees has satellites and defenses and stations in orbit.

His masters claws prick slightly, against his arm, and he wonders if she is not displeased also.

Master Dooku leans towards his padawan’s side of the console, scowling darkly at the readouts. His padawan just gives him a look, and they have an entire argument with nothing but their glowers and their eyebrows.

They pull farther away from the shelter – and interference – of the dust ring. Data starts to populate the scanners, and Tsui can feel Master Dooku’s grim relief. Padawan Vosa presses back in her seat, watching the data display fill up, the subtle pinpricks of light reflecting off her eyes in the dark, her fingers tense on the arms of the chair. Her gaze flicks up and out, staring into the reach of space, where they can see the other planets, and sense the churning, expanding expectation of violence, of war, the military might that awaits there like a beacon of _events-about-to-happen_.

Something strikes their ship, small and hard, and all of them but Master Yaddle flinch.

Padawan Vosa stares at the corner where the strike had occurred and lets out an explosive breath in the tension-filled moment after. “Just a rock.” She mutters. A couple more smaller objects plink off the hull, and Tsui can’t settle, can’t calm, when there is a rising sense of urgency bubbling up in his stomach that he doesn’t understand –

Another larger object hits their shuttle, and the comm-system crackles with static, pops, and _screeches_.

Master Dooku and Padawan Vosa both dart hands across the console, trying to silence the disturbed system. The ringing silence when it actually stops is almost painful, broken only by Tsui’s rapid heartbeat in his ears, and the tightly controlled breathing of the other three Jedi.

“Comm-system is down.” Padawan Vosa reports, voice shaky with a panicked, glib cheerfulness.

Master Dooku shoots her an angry look. “Were it had been down five minutes ago.” He hisses scathingly.

“I thought it was.” His padawan hisses back reproachfully. “I’m _sorry_.”

“Had you more respect for your responsibility and been less idiotically careless- “

Tsui warbles with distress, and Master Yaddle silences the other pair with a sharp mental reprimand that has them both wincing and turning to her.

“Greater concerns now, there are.” She reminds them sternly. “ _Bickering_ , you will cease.”

Tsui gulps in air and looks up. They all look up, as a shadow above them dim the light of Yinchor’s sun, and it becomes blatantly clear that they have been discovered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: I _know._
> 
> Anyhow, after some feedback i'm going to try and make the story a little more coherent by following one plot line for a few chapters and then going back to the other, so you get larger chunks of coherency. It's still a little messy, given that this arc has 2.5 plotlines to follow, but i am doing my best. The next two arcs will be much more focused in plot and in the amojnt of characters involved, I promise. 
> 
> For those of you concerned about the OC's; there are a lot of newer, background OC's in this fic, and remembering who they are is not all that important. The Jedi are, but the rest were merely characters i pulled in so i had people to reference in the grander scheme of things. I'll try and reference their role any time i bring them up or add tag in the notes so you know.


	18. Chapter 18

At first, crashing is boiling and bright and loud, the hull streaming with entry heat, too much for the sophisticated stealth vessel to handle.

But it handles it, more or less – largely _less_ – with the aid of the two Jedi Masters confined within.

And then the vessel strikes the water, a devastating, engulfing impact of instant dark, a sudden rush of silence, and _pain_ -

~*~

Impact, expulsion. Impact, expulsion. Impact-

A dull, sluggish thudding, wrenching deep within, sending cascading waves of ice-heat violently through him, and he wants it to stop, tries to draw away-

“Oh no, you do _not_ get to die, old man!” A voice snarls darkly, familiar and _livid_.

 _Electrifying_ agony, inescapable and demanding, wrenching him away from the pulsing retreat of promising stillness and absence and lack of pain.

He breathes, strangling on air, unable to bear the bright shine that meets streaming, unfocused eyes, rolls or is shoved over, and vomits brine-water, coughing and gasping wretchedly. Breathing is like fire, his lungs shredding themselves to gasp it in, fighting fluid and salt and who knows what else, expelling them violently.

His arms shake and tremble from the effort of keeping him from collapsing on his face, and Yan Dooku accept that he is going to live, albeit miserably, given the state he finds himself in.

His companion laughs raggedly, collapsing back with that over-indulged, galling sense of humor she has, radiating pure self-satisfaction, trembling with adrenaline and thrilled survival.

He struggles to push himself upright and fails, surrendering to the indignantly of slumping into the crook of an arm, body wracked with fierce pain. Water streams from his short hair and his burning eyes, swirled with pink. It takes effort to focus, and it takes focus to recognize broken ribs and a bleeding skull as separate entities from the jolting ache still singing through his bones, which he cannot accurately discern to be from the impact of the crash, the result of a near-drowning, or something else entirely.

A ceaseless expanse of shimmering cerulean water stretches out before him, and rough, primitive planking bites into his skin, sinking absorbed heat through his sopping clothes.

“Komari…” His voice comes out a little more than a coarse rasp, and his padawan makes an irritated sound low in her throat.

“Nobody has noticed us yet, master.” She mutters, sounding aggrieved. “Just enjoy breathing for a bit.”

What is meant to be a disapproving sound turns out a rattling gurgle.

He earns himself an explosive, displeased sigh. “Master Yaddle and her little padawan seem to have survived.” She reports irritably. “I can’t say more about them than that. I’ve been _a bit preoccupied_ trying to save _your_ miserable life.”

Her Force presence churns in agitation, stinging in his senses, churlish and brittle before drawing back inward, keeping the most vulnerable part of herself safe from exposure.

Had he more energy – more anything – he’d offer a dissatisfied sigh himself, but it is enough effort just to breath, the shallowest draw of air dragging the threat of a painful cough out of his chest.

He is forced to leave it be. For the moment, he and Komari are safe, but they won’t remain so if they are found as they are. He needs to gather himself, take stock of their situation and the available resources, formulate a plan, and see them reunited with the larger Jedi mission.

But for a moment, just for a moment, he closes his eyes, and lets himself rest.

~*~

Water presses at his back, as familiar to his species as open air, the sky a startling relief after the murky dark, and the terrible, crushing pressure of the depths that had dragged the vessel – the remains of the vessel, and him with it, down, and down, and down.

As a semi-aquatic Aleen, he could handle the lack of air, the pressure depth, the chill. To a point. Only to a point.

Gasping breath hitched his chest, hard and rapid, and his fingers spasmed. Master Yaddle had _saved_ him. He was _alive_.

But half his vision was a scrawling red darkness. Half his body was unmitigated fire, his ragged gasping little more than whimpers, wanting nothing – aside from the pain to stop – so much as to _cry_.

A gentle claw touches his shoulder, another small body bobbing along in the swells beside him, for the moment in the swathe of the world he cannot see. “With you, I am.” His master assures him, again. He can feel the slick in his mouth, taste the metal in his own blood when he moves his tongue and tries to speak. Broken fire lances through his face, reminding him his jaw in not whole.

“With you, I am.” Master Yaddle repeats, and the pain fades some. Tsui fights to stay awake, to stay aware. He has – slipped. Been slipping, and he isn’t sure if its into a lapse of consciousness, or if his mind simply can’t handle the pain, and blots everything out.

It takes effort. It takes _so much effort_.

A passageway unfurls, opening in his mind, a hand offered. Tsui takes it, gasping and sucking in wetly as his mind bridges to his masters, the shields between them stripped away. The world rushes in the gaps, for a moment, and Tsui flinches and wails in agony before it is gone, swept away from him as if they have both been swaddled away from all that is _not-them_.

Against the furnace-forge of warmth and light and strength that is his master, his pain melts away, followed by some of his fear. What remains is a dissonant sort of awareness of his pain, of his suffering, of his damage, but he is not consumed by it.

Still, his breathing hitches, a stuttering staccato rhythm, sharp and whistling.

‘ _Master, what do I do_?’ He despairs. He cannot stay afloat himself. She cannot keep him afloat forever. They are not safe. And the other Jedi are still waiting on them. Counting on them. He is beyond pain. He is not beyond dread.

Neither, he discovers, is his master. There is a thinness to his sense of her, a drawing away as she separates her emotions from her concentration, letting them slip from the here and now so that they cannot hinder her. Or hurt. Her empathy shrouds him, soothes him, but for herself, she lingers on the expanding field of copperish red around a small blue form she cannot pull away from, a struggle to equalize a small, brilliant light that tries to slip away without smothering it in her own grasp.

‘ _You will heal_.’ She replies, slow in coming and unyielding in this simple demand.

Disbelief and doubt swamp him, pain seeding back in in their undertow. He cannot heal, not this! He is barely to the point of mending saplings! How can she expect him to mend himself? To knit broken bone and rendered flesh when he has never dared to so much as attempt to remedy _bruises_ on anything with a beating pulse? ‘ _I can’t! I can’t_!’ Fear and despair rise like a floodwater, and with them comes more waves of pain, lashing back into his world.

‘ _No_.’ Yaddle’s resistance is firm in his mind, blazing against the heavy despair that drowns his mind as mercilessly as the ocean had tried to drown their lives.

‘ _Heal, you_ will.’ She commands him, refusing to accept his surrender to this. ‘ _You_ must. _With you, I am. Stay with you, I shall._ ’ She is resolute in this. She will stay with him, in his own blood-tide, in an endless waste of water, until he succeeds.

Or they drown.

‘ _My padawan, you are. Trust my life in your hands, I do_.’

Resolution. Acceptance. Patience. Tsui has heard it said that Jedi are never afraid to die for a good cause. He has never considered that such a cause might be such a thing as a single life. His own life. The realization strikes him deeply, that she would rather die than abandon him.

(Years later, she will thwack him about the knees and scold him for telling his own padawan this tale, offering to the next generation a similar promise; “In danger, our lives were _not_. Succeed, you did. _Dramatic_ , you are.”)

Her faith is a beacon. Tsui acknowledges it, basks in it, surrenders to it, and allows himself to hope. Having hope, he closes his one seeing eye, steels himself – and this takes time, precious, invaluable, necessary time - and reaches into his own pain; seeking that hesitant, glimmering edge between _being_ as something physical and material and wounded, and _burning_ as something more than that, something _shifting-yearning-pulsing-dark-light-green- **divine**_ , between _once-was_ and _could-be_. Seeking, on the linear edge of such divides, the essence of _change_ \- the very thing, he was coming to believe, that composed the universe, and all in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author: short chapter, I know, but i'm short on time this week.


	19. Chapter 19

“Should we intervene?” Depa inquires, watching the closed door in front of her warily.

“Nope.” Mace Windu replied curtly, arms crossed as he watched the same door. Waiting.

“They’re screaming at each other.” The young chalactin knight points out, brow quirked.

“Yes, they are.” Her master nods.

“It sounds rather bad.”

“Yes, it does.”

“ _Master_.” Depa’s mouth thins, losing patience.

“ _Depa_.” He sighs, and pinches his brow. “Exactly what do you think intervening would do?”

“Make them stop shouting at each other?” She proposes.

“Alright.” He turns towards her, dark eyes meeting her own. “Then what?”

His former padawan pauses, narrowing her gaze. She repeats the inquiry, waiting for the lesson. “….then what?”

His face twitches minutely, and his gaze slides back to the door, and the muffled disagreement going on behind it.

“They can have this argument right now, or they can hold onto it for _days_ or _weeks_ until it blows up or blows over. Trust me, Qui-Gon in a snit is unbearable.” He muses with a snort. “If he and his padawan must shout at each other, let them _finish_ shouting. I’d much prefer one loud argument than a drawn out period of sniping, grumbling discontent.”

“It’s unbecoming.” She remarks, nose crinkling. “Maser Jinn should set a better example.”

“Padawan Jeisel knows which of her masters traits to emulate and which to unlearn.” Her master replies, with a drawn out sigh threaded with weariness. Depa looks her master over with a concerned frown. She knows he considers Master Jinn a friend, a good friend, but she herself does not particularly enjoy the experience that is Master Jinn’s slightly overbearing and regularly unkempt presence.

The door swicks open, and said padawan, stomping out, stops precisely on the threshold, before she can crash into either of them.

“ – forbid it!” Master Jinn’s voice carries sharply. Iridescent blue eyes flash hotly, but the padawan doesn’t turn back around.

Mace lifts his brows, alarmed and intrigued. “Dare I inquire?”

“No!” Master Jinn snaps.

Padawan Jeisel squares her shoulders and lifts her head. “Our reconnaissance team is long overdue, and I understand that circumstances make our options to proceed exceedingly limited.” She states, with the precise elocution of the bitingly mad and dangerously loquacious. “I proposed a retrieval team be sent.”

Her master scoffs behind her, but snaps his jaw shut when Mace gives him a short, quelling look, and regards the padawan with due consideration.

“We do not have a secondary stealth vessel. That the first experienced difficulties may mean that even if we did, it would prove just as ineffective. Any vessel going into that system is target for attack, and instigating an attack endangers our larger mission.”

“I did not propose sending another vessel.” The padawan replies primly. “I am aware of the considerations.” She bows her head just enough to convey respect for his regard.

Depa’s master glances between the padawan, and Master Jinn, and back to the padawan. He closes his eyes briefly, nods to himself, opens them and asks; “What then did you propose?”

“She-“

Depa is impressed with how quickly Padawan Jeisel’s hand snaps up over her shoulder and clenches into a fist, and more impressed that her master’s jaw clicks shut once more at the sharp, silent bid for him to _be quiet and let her speak_. Which may have more to do with the sharp warning in the Force of the girls temper about to snap than any sense of decorum, but Depa wouldn’t comment on that in polite company.

Either way, Master Jinn’s padawan was a force of nature.

“As best as we can devise, our stealth vessel went down over Yitheeth. As best we can discern in the force, our reconnaissance team is still alive. We cannot get a ship down to retrieve them.” She recites the facts simply. Depa recognizes this tactic, and awaits what madness might come next, when Jedi convinced themselves that, under the circumstances, something insane seemed perfectly reasonable. “I proposed instead having a light transport hyper-skip just above atmosphere on Yitheeth, and Shadow-Walking a retrieval team to the surface.”

Jedi Master Mace Windu stares at the girl for a long moment, and then looks up to Qui-Gon Jinn.

He takes a breath.

“I understand,” the harun kal remarks. “why you raised your voice.”

~*~

“You are absolutely certain?” Qui-Gon questions again, half beneath his breath, as they stand in the shadowed belly of a transport.

“I am the third-best instructor for Force Structures in the temple.” Sian nods sharply. “I got Shadow-Walking down on the first try.”

“That was not a _yes_.” Knight Billaba mutters beside them; Qui-Gon's hand clenched in Sian's, Sian's in he chalactin Jedi's.

“Skip in five…“ The pilot reports, a clammy sweat dampening her collar. She had volunteered for this, but hyper-skipping was no easy business.

“What we are about to do is impossible.” The padawan states straightforwardly, and then grins. It’s a little manic, that grin. “We’re going to do it anyway.”

“Four…”

“I think I’ve changed my mind-“ Qui-Gon huffs, apprehension prickling up his spine.

“Too late!” His padaan tugs on his hand, rolling her eyes. Qui-Gon's grip tightens, and she squeezes back, far more reassuring than her blithe quip. 

“Three….”

“Just trust me.” His padawan implores, irredescent eyes practically aglow in the darkened cabin, assured and entreating.

Qui-Gon stares back, feeling an unfathomable weight in that simple demand.

“Two.”

“Master, _trust_ me.”

“One.”

~*~

Qui-Gon is not sure what he expected it to feel like, but the actual act of Shadow-Walking was far less intense than he had imagined. There was no squeezing pressure, or violent temperature changes, or _unnatural_ seeming sensations. Just a sudden loss of equilibrium, nausea born of disorientation, and then-

He blinked, and they were out of the shuttle-

He blinked, and they were falling through roiling, dark clouds, heavy with ionized charge ready to explode-

He blinked, and they were _under water_ , in the shadow of some massive, weighty creature, skimming just below a bright surface. His entire body jerks in shock, but he hasn’t even had time to think _don’t breathe_ before-

They are _sopping_ wet, standing in the dark shadow of an awning on the edge of a crumbling pier. Knight Billaba coughs roughly, having been as ill prepared for a sudden dunking as he was. Qui-Gon himself swallows bile, forcing himself not to vomit, trying to get his eyes to focus, and his head to stop spinning floatily.

“I actually _did_ it.” His padawan bubbles out, a bright, victorious exhalation, her entire presence rife with shock and giddiness. Then she takes a breath, and another, and shakily sinks to her knees. Qui-Gon drops beside her more or less intentionally, and lays a concerned hand on her shoulder. “Sian?” He prompts urgently, feeling fear churn low in his stomach.

“It doesn’t… usually…. take this much….. out of me.” She pants, and he notices then that her chill is more than seawater. Her energy itself is dimmed and thin.

“What is the range for Shadow-Walking?” Knight Billaba inquires hoarsely, patting her face with a wet sleeve before giving it up as a bad job.

Sian takes a minute, regulating her breathing, centering her energy. Qui-Gon is proud of her. Of her daring, and her effort, and her simple self-discipline.

“Obi-Wan said most Nightsisters only ever crossed the continent.” She puffs out, when she feels a little less frayed out. “But that its only real limit was your own power.”

Knight Billaba’s lower lip drops before she checks herself. “A continent. A _continent_. Padawan Jeisel, we just crossed _an entire planetary body_!”

So he wasn’t the only one whose throat got a little tight at the sheer magnitude of difference just explained to them. What a relief. Actually, no. He’s not relieved. At all.

Qui-Gon’s padawan looks up, eyes flashing, just shy of baring teeth, a darkening flush of exertion and defiance coloring beneath her black freckles. “I promised I could do it, and I _did_.”

That pinched look, before closing her eyes? Knight Billaba definitely learned that from Mace Windu.

The teenaged devaronian slumps into the hold he has on her shoulder, drooping as she looks to her master. Qui-Gon brushes down aggravation and fear and gives her something steady to lean in to, brushing her wet brown and white braid over her shoulder. “Someone else gets to suss out our recon team.” She grumbles.

Qui-Gon smiles wryly, drawing on the Living Force, which rose thick and rich from the ocean, to bolster all three of them. Even Knight Billaba relaxes with it, offering him a nod of gratitude. “I’m sure we can manage without you, padawan.” He remarks.

The dubious, skeptical look he receives is entirely undeserved, he thinks huffily. As is the follow up glance to Knight Billaba, and then the incremental shrug, as if to say _at least someone here can_.

The look Knight Depa Billaba offers them both in turn suggest Qui-Gon has just found another Jedi who will refuse to work directly with him ever again. A pity. He rather admired his friends’ student.


	20. Chapter 20

While the majority of the Yinchorri system’s demographic is indeed its native species, there was enough of a smattering of traders, transient workers, and immigrants that foreign species were not too remarkable. Fortunately for the Jedi, their race alone would not out them.

Probably.

Still, Yaddle draws the Force within herself inward, and pushes the world away. The Yinchorri would not be influenced by mental or emotional suggestion through the Force, but even the most null or impervious of creatures still had a connection to it, an instinctive feel they may not truly grasp or understand, layered within their unconscious. As such, things, beings, and places that were themselves weak but not completely void of the Force could instinctively seem ….uninteresting.

She will take any cautionary measures she deems necessary, particularly effective or not.

And when that did not work well enough, she had long perfected a low, deep-chested snarl that imitated the deep-water hunters of her homeworld, suggesting ill-temper and the threat of venemousness. In the past it had proven an effective warning to even the most troublesome of characters, helped along, if necessary, by a grim reveal of her needle-sharp teeth.

She scuttles alongside the walls of canopied walkways and crowded towers, the sun beaming down over the floating cities artificial island, new architecture layered over old layered over obsolete, the ancient roots still rotting beneath, rich with the shadow of decay and the brimming glow of base nutrient components feeding microscopic life. The population is a blurry collective, the Yinchorri, like the huts, somewhat obscure in the Force, and the ocean beneath and in surround made the entire planet brim.

It does not seem like a place of strife and beckoning war, but beyond the radiance of the Living Force, she could feel the cold warning in the space beyond the sky, the threat and malice.

Her padawan is a boneless weight across her back, gangly limbs carefully tucked in her grasp. He had done well. He had done well. He would live.

The rest is uncertain.

She had felt the surge of power, the unique, potent other-ness that defined the aspect of the Force that delved into what the Nightsisters called magick, a wellspring governed by a philosophy not well understood by the Jedi. She had felt his bones knit beneath her hands, steadying them in place as best she could – both physically and with the Force – bobbing in the water as they had been. Blood had not flowed so frightfully. Flesh had drawn together, with a sizzling, coalescent, strange sort of weaving, and then-

Whether it was strength or focus or pain or something else entirely that had failed her padawan, she does not know. She had been stabilizing him, feeding him her own energy, and yet- and yet-

Vividly raw scars webbed his body, snarling across the surface and reaching deep in the muscle, radiating violent pain even as he was unconscious. His healing was not something that had faded so much as it was something he had lost control of, and it had snarled and warped before failing him. Yaddle does not believe even the best of healers now could save the ruined eye, and she does not know if the pain he is in will fade, or if it too is entrenched in his skin.

Magick gave much, but much it demanded too. It was remarkable, and it was unforgiving.

The wizened master swallows tightly, takes a breath, adjusts her grip on the compact Aleen carted across her back, and refocuses herself. Grief and worry would not help her now. Would help neither of them.

It is more difficult to track the others through the Force while also shielding herself and her padawan, but not impossible. She is further reassured that even if she cannot find them, they will surely be seeking her and Tsui.

She brushes her claws briefly over a limp blue hand, accepts her circumstances, and, careful of her burden, moves forward.

~*~

“ _Bounty_ hunters.” Depa regards her companions flatly, earning two unfortunately identical guileless looks, ice blue and iridescent blue eyes both blatantly conveying that they cannot comprehend her doubts.

“It’s a _good_ cover story.” Padawan Jeisel insists, and her master nods in support of her statement.

“Padawan Jesisel, you are the only one among who even remotely looks as if they could pass as a bounty hunter, save that you are an adolescent of _sixteen_.” Depa sighs, looking the girl over from her half-shaved head to her sleeveless tunics to her armored cortoisis bracers, the heavy black belt over her pink tabbards, and the studded boots that suddenly made the threat of getting kicked all the more dire. “And Master Jinn is….” She gestures vaguely at him, from his loose, overly mended layers to his haphazardly upkept hair and general scruffy demeanor, earning one affronted look from the Master and one rueful shrug of comprehension from the Padawan.

Depa, like her master, preferred traditional tunics, and all humility aside, if her clothes needed to be mended, and she was home at the Temple, she used the textile recyclers for their intended purpose and had her clothes respun properly. A proper appearance was as much a measure of discipline as anything else, not to mention _dignity_. Master Jinn ill-fit and too oft-mended tunics tended to reach straight past humble and arrive at looking tragically poor.

Rumor had it he had taken to the habit of deliberate disrepair as a young man just to spite and irk his then-current and now-former master, and the Council just as a bonus.

“I’m a _tall_ sixteen.” The devaronian teen rallies, drawing Depa’s thoughts back on track. “Cross species age identification is difficult. I highly doubt anyone here can call us on it.”

“Be that as it may – approaching this search as a profitable endeavor opens up the possibility of others attempting to collect on that supposed ‘bounty’. We could be putting our colleagues under even more scrutiny. They are in enough danger as it is.” Depa argues. She is appropriately concerned, she thinks, particularly given that their exit plan was vague at best. In that it wasn’t so much an exit plan so much as they were to report back, as best as possible, positioning and movements on the Yinchorri fleet and make their way to a rendezvous while the Jedi-Judicial fleet moved in for engagement.

“I would say,” Master Jinn remarks. “ that _all_ of us are in an equal position of danger. Considering.”

Padawan Jeisel tilts her head, damp braid swinging slightly, and a light shiver runs across her shoulders. “True, but I think Knight Billaba meant to emphasize that our recon team is certainly more _vulnerable_ than we are. They _did_ fall out of the sky.”

Master Jinn grunts in affirmation, looking a tad irritated that his padawan had seen fit to contradict him.

“Very well.” He mutters, hands disappearing into his sleeves. “Your concern is noted, but the point may be moot if we conclude this search quickly. Perhaps we could keep moving?” He addresses Depa, but his gaze skates over his Padawan, who is still a touch grey in the face, and whose energy is clearly still flagging, sapping at her body and tinging her Force presence like an intangible bruise. Depa did not understand the mechanics of Magicks, but the effects, she would admit privately, were unsettling, even as they were awe-inspiring.

Depa nods promptly, and gestures him onward. As a renowned Master of the Living Force, his ability to locate their missing compatriots undoubtedly surpassed their own. “By all means, Master Jinn.”

The half-pinched look her offers her suggests she has just imitated her own Master too closely, and he’s not sure if he likes it. Depa smiles.

~*~

Step, wheeze. Step, wheeze. Step, crackling, fire-inducing, painful wheeze.

Komari’s hand, like an iron vice around his shoulder, loosens, and the young woman offers a mild grunt of effort, bearing most of both their weights. “Alright, master, we have to stop. You need a rest.”

“I do not.” He resists, stubbornly, but all Komari has to do is stop supporting him, and all the stubbornness in the world won’t keep him upright. He does not understand why his entire being is so frail and sapped for strength, and aches so fiercely. Even the Force feels distant and sluggish to his command, and the fiery-grinding pain of his broken ribs refuses to allow him focus, when every thought in his head is consumed by the sheer effort it takes to stand and move forward.

Komari makes a derisive sound in the back of her throat, rolling her eyes – and he _despises_ that little gesture. “I can either lean you against a wall, or I can just let you fall over.” She threatens, bracing herself to step away. His grip over her shoulders tightens involuntarily, and her washed out blue gaze flashes victoriously. He concedes, and nods grumpily. “Very well.” He growls.

“I just knew you’d see it my way.” She chirps sarcastically, and they shuffle awkwardly over to the nearest wall, Komari keeping an eye n the street access from the alleyway they were currently occupying. They did not have a clear destination, simply moving in the general direction from which they could feel their fellow Jedi. Well, hopefully most likely their fellow jedi. It wasn’t impossible that there would be some other strong Force-Sensitives in the region, but odds were…

Dooku can feel his cheek twitch slightly. He does not enjoy playing to chance alone, merely _hoping_ the odds were in his favor. It has never been a particularly pleasant experience for him.

Grooved durasteel presses against his back, and his breathing stutters sharply, and he fights the cough before it takes him roughly, wracking and rattling with fluid, sending scrawling lines of white-red over his vision, the pain excruciating.

He doesn’t recall either falling or sliding to the ground, but when his vision clears Komari is kneeling next to him, watching him with a searing, unreadable look in her eyes. Her hands, usually chill to the touch, are nearly scalding on his cold skin when she wraps strong, skinny fingers around his own weathered wrist.

“ _What_?” He rasps the hoarse demand, swallowing and swallowing again. Annoyingly, she reaches for his face, in spite of the fact that she knows he dislikes others touching his person unless absolutely, direly necessary, and scrubs the frayed edge of her sleeve across his mouth and chin, scuffing his beard uncomfortably.

The blood the action reveals is not really a surprise. He can taste it in the back of his brine-scalded throat.

He blinks absently at the traces of blood that mar Komari’s pale hands, and casts his senses into the Force. It is a not oft spoken of truth that many Jedi often sense their death coming, not only or always in the moment, but on occasion days, even weeks in advance. Not a dread, per se, but an understanding. If his is coming for him today, the Force doesn’t reveal.

He lifts his gaze from her hands to her face, as his padawan peers back at him not with worry, but a spiteful sort of defiance, like the idea of his death angers her more than frightens her. His face twitches, and he can tell he’s bad off that he almost smiles at the thought. It was very much like his padawan.

It didn’t used to be. Oh, she’d had pride and sass aplenty even as a youngling, hot-headed but quick to forget, if not forgive. She’d been a fairly cheerful teen, though she could always turn snide and sarcastic when displeased. But after Galidraan… realizing how wrong they had been had stricken his padawan deeply, and the aftermath – or despicable lack thereof, depending on ones perspective - had lead to arguments and outbursts much more vicious and passionate than Qui-Gon had ever managed. She had faulted him, and his peers, and the Council. The backlash from Mandalore, the refusal on the part of the Senate to accept fault or punish those who had so ill-used the Jedi, all of it had been – too much. She had been the only padawan on that mission, the youngest, and she had trusted her elders unfailingly, and had paid a terrible price for it.

And Dooku, he had failed her twice over – _thrice_ over, by the end. He had chastised and chided her for giving in to her emotions, for her outbursts and her arguments. She threw his teachings back in his face, the Council’s respect back in theirs, and Dooku, at the time, had still refused to acknowledge the wrong he had wrought. Refused to accept blame for Galidraan. He had blamed the Death Watch, the governor, the Council, but not himself. So her accusations had been – not well received. He had, pridefully and poorly so, repudiated her when her behavior only worsened – and what she had faced in the galaxy had not been kind, and what had lead to it had scarred her soul.

Where he found her, the condition he found her in – physically, she could recover, did, or – still was recovering. But she came back brittle and angry and suspicious; a hollowed, hardened imitation of the teen she had been. He regrets that. And he accepts the part he played in it, and the suffering that causes him, as retribution he well deserved.

But sometimes, times such a these, he looks at her and wonders why she came back at all. If she truly wished to, or if she simply had no other options. She _hates_ him, he’s certain of that, but she’d adored him once, loved him as a father, even. He wonders how she deals with it, reconciles it within herself, but those are questions he won’t ask, and she never lets her thoughts, or much of anything at all, slip past the shields bound so tightly around her that even the Force seemed to cringe and curl in.

“Komari-“ He starts, breathing ragged.

“Little Sister!” His padawan leaps to her feet and Dooku is slow to turn his head, neck stiff and aching, temples pounding, to see the wavering silhouettes of Qui-Gon and Sian, and another Jedi with them, darkened by the bright sunlight at their backs, and the shimmer of heat in the air off the street.

Komari takes the girls hands gleefully, looking her over before embracing her. She even offers a grin to Qui-Gon, who nods rather good-naturedly before he catches sight of Dooku and his entire person stiffens, and alarm lights his ice-blue eyes. Yan Dooku makes a weak attempt at clearing his throat, wondering if it might be worth it to endeavor to stand.

Not likely. Sitting may be indecorous, but falling his ass in front of his entire lineage would just be undignified in the extreme.

“Master Dooku.” The other jedi steps forward, revealing themselves to be Knight Depa Billaba, two silver studs of jewelry sitting between warm brown eyes.

“He was injured in the crash, and, technically speaking, he drowned. I had to resuscitate him and I may have broken a few more ribs in the process.” Komari reports clinically, when the Knight drops down next to Dooku’s side, making a quick check of his eyes and his pulse, laying a feather-light touch over his chest to get a feel for his heart and his breathing. The young woman is too well trained to grimace, but that line appearing between her brows is telling.

“I’m not dying today.” He manages to rasp out irritably, which softens Qui-Gon’s visage considerably. Apparently his former padawan had actually been concerned. How touching. Duly assured, the younger man goes back to finding his master’s presence aggravating, looking restless and discontent, eyeing the street and letting others deal with him.

Sian, however, still watches him with wide iridescent blue eyes, taking in his condition and worrying her lower lip.

“Relieving to hear, that is.”

Master Yaddle sees to all but peel out of the duracrete, halfway down the far side of the alleyway when they hadn’t even noticed her entering. Knight Billaba, through discipline, and Dooku, through exhaustion, are the only two who don’t startle at her abrupt approach.

“Tsui!” Sian yelps, and tears away from Komari, who looks disgruntled about it, and darts over to Master Yaddle, who carefully sets down a near-lifeless padawan.

Dooku’s breath hitches, and he eyes the older master in concern, but her ears twitch, a resolute refusal to believe she might lose her student to this. Dooku presses him mouth closed tight, holding in his sympathy.

Sian is kneeling on the ground, hands hovering in fretful uselessness over the small Aleen, and she looks to the small green master with swimming eyes. “I don’t understand….” She murmurs, and Dooku is highly irritated he can’t see, when Qui-Gon side-steps his sister-padawan, gets a look at the boy, and his brows shoot up into his hairline.

“Heal himself, my padawan did.”

If possible, the young devaronian’s eyes go even wider. “He figured it out? The Nightsister’s technique?”

Yaddle hums, expression pinched. “The measure of his success, we have yet to see. But live, he will.” She murmurs. The teens expression dims, and she clutches a pale blue hand between her own.

“We need to move to a more secure location, Masters.” Knight Billaba speaks up, voice firm and level and clear in a manner much needed. “It may be some time before we are either retrieved or able to make rendezvous with the fleet.”

“What happened to _your_ ship?” Komari cuts in, arms crossing. Knight Billabal looks back evenly, but Qui-Gon’s gaze flickers up to the sky for forebearance.

“We Shadow-Walked to the surface. We couldn’t risk another transport being shot down.” Knight Billaba states.

“Unwise, that was.” Master Yaddle remarks, looking sharply at the three of them.

“We were _successful_.” Sian mumbled defensively. Dooku wishes she wouldn’t mumble. It’s an atrocious habit, and he can blame her master for it.

“Obvious, that is. But change my statement, it does not.” Yaddle tips her ears at the girl, who subsides, barely.

“We have a long range encrypted communicator, Master Yaddle. As soon as we are safe, we can contact the fleet and update them on the Yinchorri’s movements. Once our people establish a foothold in the system, our retrieval will come for us.” Knight Billaba informs them, already moving, with care, to help support Yan as he stands.

Master Yaddle nods, and Sian moves to help lift her friend. Qui-Gon stops her, and takes the burden himself, having a quiet argument with his eyes that his padawan – his exhausted looking padawan, Dooku notes - concedes without her usual verve.

Dooku does not have the chance to agree with the plan, as the plan is going to be carried out whether or not he speaks.

In a manner he cannot quite express, it irks him deeply that these younglings are in the midst of achieving the unbelievable, while he can barely keep himself to his feet.

There is a creeping, seeping admission teasing out of his bones, telling him that that feeling he can’t quite express, is simply what it is, to be growing _old_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: anyone else having issues with the archive's email system? it's being kind of spotty.
> 
> Anyhow.... i think i'm ready to jump back to Mandalore.


	21. Chapter 21

Clouds lay heavy and low over a carbon-laden mist, and a battlefield of churned mud and impact craters. Blasterfire zings through the silver-lit gloom, bolts of red and yellow and green. Mortar rounds whistle, impact, explode, and dirt flies through the air, smattering everyone within range. Flares light the clouds, small, white-yellow sparklers, blinding headsets and visors alike to the whirring drones that skim over their heads.

Through the noise of shouting and blaster-fire and explosions, the occasionally deep thrum of a lightsaber emerges, with a flash of fiery copper hued in violet or a crackling white edged void, one a tireless defender, the other a devastating onslaught.

“ _Osik_!”

“Take cover!”

Another warning whistle, trying to gauge the landing of a round they can’t see through the smoke and cloud-cover, feet slipping in mud and overturned dirt.

Ben leaps towards the pressure-sense of the falling munition, and his blades meets metal with a whumping explosion that cleaves in half and burst around him, sliding away from his person with a careful redirection of kinetic energy, sparing the two tripped up mandos behind him. He deflect a stray bolt of plasma almost absently, unable to tell if it was friendly fire or foe, and helps the pair to their feet, charging with them into the next crater, panting and sweat soaked. He can barely make out their paint through the muck, but the exhilaration of _fear-adrenaline-fight_ is loud enough in the Force, as well as the lack of murderous rage towards his person. He thinks it’s safe to bet they are on his side.

The jedi master ducks his head, pulling damp, ticklish air into his lungs. He really needs to put a dehumidification filter in his helmet.

“Thanks, _jetii_.” One of his companions huffs out, giddy to be alive. The other offers a shaky thumbs up - probably still processing exactly how few seconds away from explosive death she had been.

Ben nods, casting out his senses. He’d lost track of Jango anywhere from a few minutes to nearly an hour ago. The _Haat Mando’ade_ had achieved air superiority over this hemisphere, but _Kyr’stad_ was putting up one hell of a ground defense, and all the air superiority in the galaxy was worth absolutely nothing if they couldn’t see well enough to assist their boots on the ground. It was unfortunate, but not an overwhelming obstacle.

“ – _and someone get that fucking targeting drone out of the air_!”

Well, Ben couldn’t _see_ Fett, but that was definitely his command over the comms. More than a few _verde_ swear colorfully – its not as if they haven’t been _trying_ , but the flares white out their visors, and through the haze and cloud cover, it was little more than a whirring shadow. But the _Mand’alor_ was right – the targeting drone was posing a not insignificant problem, and they were getting blasted out here.

The jedi glances up, but dizzying ultra-white blooms and striates across his visual feed, hurting his eyes.

Well then.

Ben shifts a bit, deactivating his lightsaber - which seemed discontent, if a crystal matrix could be such, at the action - before making sure his head is slightly lower than the rim of the crater he and his companions are sitting in – it wouldn’t do to be distracted and get his head taken off, after all – and pops off his bucket.

One of his companions sputters, jerking out a hand as if to shove it back on his head. Their concern is touching.

“May I borrow that?” Ben inquires, gesturing to the phase-pulse rifle they where currently using as a prop to keep themselves sitting upright. They hesitate, hands clenching over the pronged barrel, and their companion elbows them in the side. With skeptical reluctance, they hand the rifle over. Ben smiles in gratitude, and scans the sky, taking a deep, measured breath, and focusing his senses. He filters out the shouting, the blaster-fire, the panting of his companions, the muted thump-roar of mortar explosions. He focuses on the crackle-hiss of flares, and the whirring zoom skating above the battlefield.

He lets his hearing guide his eyes past the flash and sparkle crackling through the cloud cover, finding just the hint of a shadow darting back and forth, making out the barest zig-zagging cross-pattern, as shifting and unpredictable as a nubian hummingbird.

His eyes lock on it, his senses, and he brings the rifle up, resting the weight between his shoulder and palm, resting his finger on the trigger guard, not the trigger. Not yet. He trusts the Force more than the sites, and aims it out just below the shadow, which is not the drone itself, but a mirage of its positioning on the clouds. He resists the urge to fire, waiting it out for just the right instant, letting his breathing drawn in, draw out, hold, his heartbeat calm, his hands steady.

A sizzling burst of heat-threat whistles above his ear, unheeded though it makes his companions flash of panic and swear him out for idiocy.

Finger on the trigger.

Breathe in.

Breath out.

Hold.

 _Fire_.

A bursting flash of plasma tearing through mechanics, and the targeting drone tumbles out of the sky, oscillating and shrieking on its way down, before crashing with a heap, lights stuttering out.

A spatter of cheers go up nearby, whooping as mando’s jump from craters and charge forward, making headway before another one of those damn things can show up.

“ _Your jetii shot it down, Mand’alor. Sky’s clear_.” One of his companions reports jubilantly, impressed, and Ben hands the rifle back and pops his helmet on.

“ _He what_?” Fett snaps, incredulis and angry at the same time. “ _That fucker can shoot_?”

“You’re welcome, _Vod_.” Ben comms in dryly. He and Fett had argued, in the past, over Fett’s supplying Ben’s young padawan with a blaster rifle while having absconded with him, and the manner in which he insisted upon its training and use over that of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. Ben had made his opinion on the matter quite clear, and Fett had never pressed him about showing up in the firing ranges for training.

“ _You_ -“ Fett devolves into a string of swearing that would make the less inured blush and vacate the premises. Ben just rolls his eyes skyward and mutters to himself.

“Cody never swore at me.” He grumbles.

One of the mandos in the crater with him coughs. “We don’t know who your Cody was, _jetii_ , but if he weren’t swearing at you aloud, I guarantee he was doin’ it in his head.” They remark. “You’re a right menace all the way around.”

Ben considers that accusation, shrugs ruefully, and tips his head. “Thank you.” He offers, peculiarly charmed. Both of them snort, and heave themselves upright, ready to move.

Igniting his lightsaber, which sings - a warm, vibrant pulse threading right through his bloodstream, quickening his heart and honing his senses to their keen edged best - Ben prepares to join them.

“Ready?” He offers, basking in the light of his blade.

The pair of them scoff, weapons in hand. “Are you?” The woman retorts, and leads the charge.

~*~

Victory means sitting in a tapering drizzle on a blaster-scorched duracrete pad, munitions crates stacked around portable heating units for seating, cleaning gear and armor while waiting for rations to be distributed and the buildings to be cleared of traps and sabotage. Prisoners (the young and the willingly surrendered) have been stripped of armor, given medical treatment, and secured for transport back to one of the _Haat Mando’ade’s_ more fortified locations, and material acquisitions are still being sorted.

Ben has just finished making the rounds for casualty and fatality reports, the former significant, the latter blessedly low. The medical personnel certainly have their hands full, but the litany tonight will be brief. Ben casts his gaze over the battle-wrecked fields around the encampment _Kyr’stad_ had fortified. The damage is jarring, but Concord Dawn is not like Kalevala, or stripped down, recovering Concordia, or struggling Mandalore – the planet was still fertile, and even aside from the craters and the scrawling tracks of heavier equipment, and dark spreads of hasty fires hastily doused, grass and wildflowers still stubbornly root and sprout up, with sprays of trees and some type of bamboo. Even the rain is clean, lacking that touch of acidity that Mandalore’s rains have, a bitter legacy of a thousand generations of war turning fields like these into wastelands.

He sinks down on a crate surrounding an otherwise unoccupied heater, knees protesting a little, muscles sloshing from exertion and a fair collection of bruises, his right ear still ringing from being caught off guard too close to one particular explosion. He pops off his helmet, grateful for the rush of cool air, if not the damp, sweat plastering his hair to his head, and running down his neck. The bodysuits do a reasonably good job of wicking moisture away from the skin, but his helmet filters really need to be upgraded. He peels off his gloves, curling and stretching fingers, and takes a swig of water from his canteen. It would be unkind to regard this engagement as having been easy, but… his experiences were what they were. He recognized several of Death Watch’s tactics and maneuvers from the playbook of the GAR, and was able to route units and counter them quite efficiently, and Fett had proved to be an excellent bulldozer for the momentum of their advance.

He pushes his soggy hair away from his face, his hair tie lost somewhere down the back of his neck, and pulls the datapadd back off his belt. Fett was still receiving holo-comm reports, speaking with his commanders and re-evaluating their current standing, but Ben was getting acquisition details via written submissions, and it would be prudent to keep his eye on the details.

He’s exhausted, but honestly, he feels _good_.

So much of the dread, uncertainty, and dark undertones that had marked the horror of the Clone Wars simply….wasn’t here. He was fighting with free men for a cause he believed was truly just, and it felt _good_.

A scrub bucket clanks to the ground by his feet, and Ben finds himself joined by two familiar mandos, a man in the red over grey with a blue cape of House Bralor, and a female wearing the black on polished silver touched with gold that had come to denote those loyal to Fett, though her bodysuit was a mint green, as opposed to the dull blue that completed the ensemble of House Mereel.

“ _Aliit_?” He inquires politely, bending to grab a soaked bristle-cloth to clean some of the muck and carbon scoring off his armor. They both pop their buckets, the man revealing warm brown skin and corkscrews of dark hair, the woman revealing deep violet eyes and green-hued skin that suggested a mirialan ancestry, patterns shaved into her buzzed short hair.

“Kav Bralor.” The man nods. “House and Clan.”

“Corai Jaban.” The woman offers a drawl smile, sloshing a scrub-pad and attacking her helmet vigorously with it. “The same. You?” She tacks on, a gleam in her eyes like she was capable of tripping him up with such a glib inquiry. Ben smiles, shaking his head a little.

“Ben Naasade, of the Jedi Order. Is that not common knowledge?” He teases.

Bralor snorts. “You know everyone wants a _real_ answer.”

“And yet, they don’t ask.” Ben counters, brow quirked.

Neither do Bralor and Jaban, at that. It was dishonorable and offensive, in the mando culture, to ask someone why they would give up their identity. It violated the purpose of such an act.

They scrub in companionable quiet for a little while, occasionally making pleased or displeased noises, at the condition of their gear. They’re joined by a younger mando in Skirata brown and black, briefly infiltrated by a harried medic making sure no ones bleeding and forgetting to mention it, a near elderly man in Bralor colors, and a youngster in armor scrawled with orange and white, some kind of fern detailing over their greaves and vambraces. Either an artist or a runaway from a clan loyal to _Kyr’stad_. They had more than few among their ranks.

Ben isn’t sure to be pleased or cautious, regarding his unexpected company. He’s done his best not to impose, and the majority of the _mando’ade_ have done their best to ignore him. He doesn’t usually have Mandalorian company that isn’t Fett or someone who _has_ to speak with him.

Rations make their way around, delivered by younger teens working in logistics, bowls of plains noodles that can be stacked thirty high and crates of fresh fruit from the encampments supplies that weren’t destroyed or tampered with.

Ben can practically see the young mando considering whether or not to spit in his meal or ‘accidentally’ drop it on him, clearly displeased that they are on dish duty instead of in the fight. In the end, under the scrutiny of a few of Ben’s companions, the young man simply shoves the bowl in his hands and doesn’t offer him a fruit. Ben is nonplussed. Noodles are better than nutrition paste, and both are better than nothing. He slips a flask from his belt and pours sauce over the meager meal until it’s a satisfying shade of red. He doesn’t notice the _looks_ he gets until he recaps it and offers it to the young Skirata nearest his right.

“You’re – actually going to eat that.” The young man states, disbelieving.

“That _was_ the idea.” Ben replies mildly. Skirata accepts the flask of red sauce dubiously, only to have it plucked out of his hand by Fett abruptly appearing to loom over his shoulder. The young man lurches, startled, and slides over with haste when Fett kicks the crate in warning and moves to sit without patience, dropping down heavily and pouring sauce over his own bowl, just as liberally as the jedi.

Then he passes the flask to Skirata, a jogan fruit to Ben, and snags the datapadd away from the jedi, propping it on a knee to skim as he stirs his noodles.

The younger Bralor makes a throttled noise low in his throat. “ _Mand’alor_ , why?” He questions, appalled. Jango looks up, irritated and confused, to find everyone eyeing his bowl of noodles with something akin to horror or disgust.

“How can you even _taste_ that?” Jaban adds, morbidly intrigued. “My tongue would burn off. Seriously, both of you.” She looks between them.

“Rations.” The _Mand’alor_ and the _Manda Jetii_ both grunt. The mandos all look between them dubiously, settling their stupor on Ben when Jango proceeds to ignore them, sloughing noodles into his mouth with near single-minded focus. He must be utterly wrung out, Ben thinks.

“Rations?” The young mando in orange inquires.

Ben snorts in amusement. “I lived on dry rations, vita-bars, and nutrient paste for nearly three years. Trust me, you get desperate after a while.” Ben stirs his noodles, thinking back to sterile trays and foil packets and the quiet numb sort of apathy of his men, who hadn’t in their lives ever really known anything else but the bland pre-processed meal supplements. Before their jedi started spoiling them, at least. “Red sauce by the barrel was one of the cheapest and easiest things we could requisition to make it a little more bearable.”

“I’d die.” One of them mutters.

“There were a lot worse things trying to kill us.” Ben remarks, and then shuts up by taking a bite.

“I take it that was where you earned all your battle experience?” Someone braves to ask, glances flickering around their little circle. Jango, beside Ben, blinks slowly and drags his gaze halfway up, and then stops, eyes pinching, and deliberately looking back to the datapadd, deciding to let this line of inquiry play out. Ben, oblivious, hums a little, swallows, and swipes a thumb across his mouth to keep sauce and oil from staining his beard.

“I’ve been fighting wars since I was thirteen. That one was just the longest, the last, and the worst.” Ben says, somewhat absently.

“Thirteen is too young.” Jango remarks flatly, still adamantly refusing to take his eyes off the datapadd, even if he’s not actually seeing what on the display.

Ben hums a quiet agreement. “I know.” He puffs out. Thirteen had been too young. Too young for the battlefield. Too young for first love. Too young for first _loss_.

“What _di’kut_ …. I didn’t think _jetiise_ started that young.” Jaban remarks sourly.

“Nah, I heard they started _kad’au_ at seven.”

“We start lightsaber training at five.” Ben corrects. “Though we aren’t given personal blades until we’re nearer to apprenticeship.”

“So much for not training child soldiers.” The elderly Bralor snorts darkly.

“Most _jetiise_ will never see a battlefield like this, will never take a life.” Ben glances up, stormy-grey gaze hard and piercing. “The purpose of such training is geared towards physical discipline, stamina, and self-defense.”

“Then what the fuck happened to _you_?” Bralor retorts, subsiding at the black glare he was getting from the rest of their circle.

Jaban clears her throat, but doesn’t manage to speak in the awkward, tense silence after that. Everyone shifts a little uneasily, picking at their food.

Jango jabs angrily at the datapadd, and Ben stops ruminating into his noodles and glances over, irritated. “Could you not? I just put that in order.” The jedi grouses.

“Yeah, and now I can’t find a fucking thing.” Fett growls.

Ben rolls his eyes. “I can’t see how you find _anything_ with the way you organize files.”

“I’d know _exactly_ where everything’s supposed to be if you didn’t keep rearranging it every fucking time.”

Skirata sniggers, and earns two sharp looks, which inspires him to choke and cough, trying not to spit his food. That sets the others off, and the tension slides away.

Fett glowers at Ben, and Ben glowers back.

“You need a fucking haircut.” Fett mutters, tossing the datapadd down and attending to his meal.

“Not on your life.” Ben refuses reflexively. Fett rolls his eyes, so much like Commander Wolffe Ben about had whiplash. For once, a grin tugging at his mouth at the memories.

“It’s too long for your bucket.” The younger Bralor agrees, and then it goes around, all of the mandos siding with the _Mand’alor_ on the matter.

Ben considers the fact that they are not entirely _wrong_ – and he does not in fact actually desire to imitate Qui-Gon Jinn. The long hair just gives him something to shadow his face with, and differentiates him a little better from his rapidly maturing padawan. The creeping touch of grey at his temples helps too.

“Perhaps I do.” He concedes with a sigh.

Jango looks smug, a smirk touching his mouth as he digs in to his noodles.


	22. Chapter 22

Obi-Wan leans back against his bunk, the durasteel a chill but not uncomfortable line at his back. With Sha’me Betoya had come Obi-Wan’s ship, the _Lighthawk_ , courtesy of her clan-cousin Lin Betoya, who had apparently quite a lot to say about whomever had modified the _Kom’rk_ class vessel. When this is all over, Obi-Wan is going to be delighted to introduce the Mandalorian Blacksmith to Shmi Skywalker.

Obi-Wan’s flashy paintjob had been redone into a more standard pattern of blue and white, to make it a less immediately identifiable target, and questionable modifications had been made to the transponder, to make the vessel both harder to identify and harder to track. There were also some weapons and shielding system modifications that Obi-Wan was still figuring out, wondering, worriedly, exactly how much the overhaul had _cost_ , but Sha’me – and presumably Lin Betoya through her – was close-mouthed and stubborn about it.

He’s glad to have his ship back, not in the least because it makes it easier to keep themselves secure and moving.

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, cross-legged on the floor against his bunk, and relaxes his muscles. In the cabin across from him, Satine is pouring through documents and notes her father left behind, piecing together threads of interrupted investigations, suspicions, and questionable trends or events. In the cockpit, Orikhid is refamiliarizing himself with the non-standard controls, and in the cargo hold Sha’me is cleaning and cataloguing her weapons kit, occasionally humming to herself, hints of a tune carrying off the walls. In a few hours, they’ll be on the move, tackling MandalMotors as their first potential source of information on the _Kyr’stad’s_ support network.

For now, Obi-Wan takes the chance to meditate, and try and answer a few less immediate questions for himself.

What he’d done that day in that plaza in Keldabe, the connection he’d made to the Force, the sudden, brilliant clarity so vast and immense in scope-

It had been such a brief moment, but he’d like to try and get there again. Intentionally, this time. He’s always wondered how his master was able to step into a place and just…know the lay of the land, the number of people, the nuances of cause and effect and emotion and _intent_. Obi-Wan had been there, for a second, and then beyond even that. What he’d been able to _do_ , affecting the crowd as he had, taking their weapons, stopping a plasma bolt mid-arc…He hadn’t just been a part of the world, or connected to it - he’d _been_ it. All of it. What should have taken an immense amount of power, focus, and control had instead seemed as simple and as holding his breath or picking up a stone.

It had sapped his strength, given him a headache, and his grasp of the Force had been prickly for a few days afterwards, but nothing as severe as he would have expected.

He lets his breath turn into a rhythm, one that seems to thread into the quiet, internal music of his lightsaber crystals, between the bone-deep drumbeats and the lilting, teasing dance of his adegans. He tries to fall back to that moment in the plaza.

The tension, the crush of bodies, the clamor, physical and emotional-

His heartbeat picks up speed, fingers twitching. Details spark in his mind, things he hadn’t paid attention to in the moment – flashes of color, expressions on faces, the scrape of boots on duracrete and he and Satine scuffled, the sharp twist and flare of his self-concept as desperate demand met _want-and-will_ -

It’s not enough. He remembers what he felt like, but he just can’t _reach_ it.

Obi-Wan blinks open his eyes, stumped and considering. He’s keyed himself up and takes a few minutes of passive meditation to settle back down again before re-evaluating his problem.

He knows, somehow, that it comes back to the lesson his master insisted his sand exercises were supposed to help with – a matter of perception and connection. The exercises have fine-tuned his ability to grasp the feel and shape of things, as well as honed his dexterity for minute manipulations of the Force, well past the skill level of his peers, and a good many Knights too. But the connectiveness, the whole-scale understanding of things – that part of the lesson proved more illusive to him. A good deal, perhaps, because it was easy to find a connection with other living beings, slightly less so with plants or planets or stars, and not particularly easy at all to find the connection between himself and a grain of sand.

He tries to categorize it, where that moment fell, between his familiarity with his sand exercises, or was it more like Force Structuring, making the world what he believed it to be? But that was different. Force Structures had little to do with manipulation, let alone the manipulation of other persons…

Obi-Wan sighs as his thoughts tangle and trail off, and focuses on his breathing again, on his relaxing his muscles and feeling out the sound of his pulse until his mind calms and his thoughts clear.

He remembers Satine’s demand, that he do something; questioning if it was possible, and then denying any answer by believing it should be-

He’d been shot, he finally recalls. He hadn’t been scared, or startled, as it skipped off his bucket, but –

His visor had whited out, the world reduced and muffled to that small, insular space and his own harsh breath-

Obi-Wan reaches for his helmet, sitting on the bunk behind him, drawing it down into his lap and tunring it over. He knew the masters would sometimes use Sensory Deprivation as a means of narrowing their own existence down to simply them and the Force, allowing a greater connection and understanding, uninhibited by their physical environment, but…

Sensory Deprivation anything more severe than blindfolds and ear-muffs was strictly controlled for anyone under Knighthood, and even then there were rigid regulations set down and you weren’t allowed to experiment with it without supervision. Jedi could and had, in the past, gone so deep they never came back. They went comatose, and then, after a time, they just…died. Some, it was rumored, even just vanished. Which was more than unsettling, Obi-Wan thought. There were legends, of course, that Jedi of Old, at the end of their life, would simply fade into the Force, becoming one with the universe body and soul, but it’s something else entirely to have a young knight just – slip away. Or a teacher. Or a _student_.

Obi-Wan considers what could happen, if he puts on his helmets and blocks out the world and goes seeking that liminal existence where energy touched eternity – if he just went too deep, fell asleep, and never woke up. Or vanished entirely, leaving Satine and Orikhid with no idea what happened, abandoning his friends and his master, and all the potential he held for himself, for the future, for the Order just – _gone_.

He doesn’t like it, and he knows he’s made dangerous, impulsive dives into the Force before, so he sets his helmet down, pushes himself up, and goes to see how his fellow padawan is getting on.

“Was your meditation helpful?” Orikhid inquires politely, when Obi-Wan stops in the door of the cockpit, leaning into the frame.

“Not really.” Obi-Wan shrugs.

The chagrian looks back, blue eyes assessing and tinged with concern, stubby horns gleaming dully in the light from a pale, clear sky beyond the transparisteel viewport. “Is it something I can assist you with?” He offers sincerely.

Obi-Wan smiles faintly, for the kindness, and shakes his head. “Nothing dire.” He says. “Just meditating on the Force.”

The chagrian’s bright blue cheek twitches. “All on your own?” He inquires with a hint of teasing. “Without being told to by your master?”

Obi-Wan huffs a laugh. “Not _all_ padawans hate basic meditation.”

“ _Most_ do.” The chagrian challenges with good humor. “Especially those your age. _I_ certainly did.”

Obi-Wan grins at that, shaking his head.

“You know, speaking of the Force, I rather wanted to ask how you did what you did in Keldabe.”

Obi-Wan’s grin turns slightly grimacing. “That’s what I was trying to figure out.” He explains, drawing himself off the threshold and moving in to the cockpit, taking the copilots chair.

“Oh.” Mild surprise sparkles in the Force.

“Oh.” Obi-Wan repeats wryly.

“I was wondering how it worked.” Orikhid explains himself, leaning over one arm on the pilots chair, lethorns sloping over his broad shoulders. “In terms of Internal and External Force. That was a _lot_ of people.”

“That was a lot of _everything_.” Obi-Wan agrees, thinking it over. The basic theory of internal and external Force was simple – one of the first framework lessons a youngling is given in the Temple. Internal Force was your own presence and influence upon your surroundings. External Force was the Force of things which were _not_ you, which influenced your surroundings and created resistance against your influence in the Force. Another persons Internal Force would, to you, be considered External Force, their influence and your own resisting each other. But External Force could also be a matter of natural physics, other forms of energy, the passive state of the Force in any given area, be it light or dark, potent or null or saturated with particular emotional imprints, and other such influences. To influence another person, your Internal Force had to overcome _their_ Internal Force, which sometimes was a matter of Force Sensitivity, and a lot of times was a matter of sheer force of will. One did not _need_ to be Force-Sensitive to harbor a powerful Internal Force. Mandalorians were a good example of that, actually.

The simple lesson was that you could generally influence one person very strongly, or a lot of people fairly poorly.

Now, being a basic lesson, this was hardly the be all or end all of Force Theory – in fact, it barely scratched the surface of the nuances of Jedi understanding, but it was one of the foundational pillars upon which their training and education in the Force was built.

And by its measure, what he had done should have required a level of power in the Force he simply didn’t have. He _was_ powerful – his masters rigorously demanding and innovative training had seen to that, but not in terms of sheer overwhelming Internal Force. In that alone, even among his peers he could be outmatched. He and Sian were fairly equal in power. Unconventional Asajj Ventress outmatched him. Kriff, he was fairly certain _Anakin_ outmatched him, and Anakin was _seven_.

An errant thought sparks in his head, regarding Force Structures and Internal Force versus External Force and how that could be a game that most definitely gets someone hurt – well, maybe if they did it over –

He focuses.

“I’m not sure.” Obi-Wan explains, rubbing at his jaw. “It didn’t feel like I was overwhelming them. It didn’t – it didn’t feel like I was even trying to. In the moment, I don’t recall very much trying to achieve anything in particular – like taking their weapons out of their hands, or putting the people on the ground, or stopping that blaster bolt. I just…” He struggles to grasp what, exactly, _had_ happened in that instant. He’d just wanted it all to _stop_. So he’d opened himself up to the Force, perhaps more completely than he ever had before – and rather unintentionally at that - and the Force had – it seemed like the Force had done the rest.

“It did happen rather quickly.” Padawan Orikhid remarks sympathetically.

Obi-Wan frowns. “Still… I’d rather not try and rely on random flashes of power, instinct and desperation. Sheer dumb luck is all well and good, but control is a tad more reliable.”

Padawan Orikhid nods in agreement. “If you had an epiphany in the moment, or if the Force just lent a helping hand, it was there when you needed it. The rest will come in time. If you do figure it out though…you’re not in thesis level Force Theory yet are you?”

“Ha. I _just_ made Senior Padawan.” Obi-Wan insists, waving his hands to ward off extra expectations. He had enough to deal with as it was.

“Well, phenomenon like that make excellent topics for analysis. _Especially_ when they challenge contemporary schools of thought.” The chagrian teases.

Obi-Wan groans, already wondering if he’s destined to have another instructor who _greatly dislikes_ him. He’d had to be reassigned from his first Philosophy and Ethics professor when his tendency to challenge the theory bias and argue about the results of his essays nearly got him a mark of censure. His second had been rather more flexible, and had preferred more discussion based evaluations than essays, which gave Obi-Wan a better chance to explain his meaning than a static assignment allowed for. “Is that what I have to look forward to?”

The older padawan chuckles, shrugging in a sort of _you’ll do fine_ manner. “In all honesty, though, Padawan Kenobi. What you achieved there was… impressive. I’d be honored to share wisdom with you someday, if you do master it.”

Obi-Wan’s throat tightens a little, ears feeling hot, touched by the peer-to-peer respect the older padawan is offering him. Obi-Wan nods, clasping his hands for a bow of his head, acknowledging the request with as much honor as it was given.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: So this little padawan aside moment turned into a whole chapter.


	23. Chapter 23

Obi-Wan has the Force to assist himself, but how Sha’me Betoya skulks around with him in near perfect silence is a thing of grace, training, and pure skill. Particularly given that the stocky green twi’lek is taller, heavier, and wearing armor. Still, nothing creaks, and her steps barely whisper. Obi-Wan studies the way she moves and how she carries herself with interest, hoping he might learn something. She twitches a lek at him and they have a brief, embarrassing hand-sign conversation where he swears on his life – literally – that he’s not looking at her _that_ way.

By the smirk she levels at him he thinks she knew that already, she apparently just wanted to make him blush, whether she could see it through his bucket or not.

While they make their way to the MandalMotors private servers, Satine and Padawan Orikhid are currently in a meeting with the chairman and CEO of MandalMotors, having no doubt a very polite, obfuscating conversation. Satine was there to transparently meet and greet and make nice with the company, making a bold and naive show of enlisting their support and being reassured of their loyalties.

On the likely scenario that they baldly lied right back at her, Obi-Wan and Sha’me were here to collect the information they came for by less mannerly means.

“ _– most certainly have our full support, Duchess Kryze, but I’m afraid such information is protected under corporate privilege, we simply cannot divulge-“_

Their conversation drones on, a low background chatter being fed to his helmet from Padawan Orikhid’s comm.

They reach another sealed door, and Sha’me steps aside, letting Obi-Wan take a crack at it.

“ – _explain the compliment of fighters Mand’alor Fett recovered from Kyr’stad, Chairman_?” Satine inquires, her tone soft and concerned and full of _willingness-to-believe_. Obi-Wan almost snickers, and for a moment he can almost imagine her as a youngling, wide-eyed and oh-so-innocent, sweet-talking her way out of mischief, or arguing her way into extra dessert. “ _You have to understand the concern_.”

“ _Of course, of course, it is troubling, however, those vessels were clearly registered as stolen_.” The chairman says, and Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. After the fact, they most certainly were, but if _Kyr’stad_ had them long enough to paint them, then MandalMotors had been awful slow to make that report. “ _And we are grateful that Fett recovered them from enemy hands_.”

So grateful, in fact, that they never asked for them back. Or did not dare to.

The defense is plausible, of course, and Obi-Wan may be biased, but they’ll know for sure soon enough.

He cracks the code on the door, sending a brief surge of gratitude down his training bond with his master, even if the older jedi might not feel it at this range.

For the servers themselves, Obi-Wan may not be quite the slicer needed to crack through proprietary encryptions, but, luckily, he’d found one of his master’s decryption keys still in his ship, which had saved him the trouble of trying to get one comm’d to him. Sha’me guides him to the right access panel, and he pops the code cylinder in.

Sha’me watches it do its work.

~ _So… just a thing a jedi has_? ~ She signs. Well, more or less signs. That’s Obi-Wan’s interpretation, at least.

~ _My Teacher-Guardian_. ~ Obi-Wan signs back, and then, for lack of a more coherent explanation, just shrugs.

~*~

Ben is neither pleased, nor happy, nor particularly calm, at the moment, so the small pulse of… _something_ , that briefly brushed against the edge of his mind provides a momentary, confusing distraction until he realizes it came from Obi-Wan.

Bemused, as they were no longer even _in the same solar system_ , Ben shakes his head. If his padawan was trying to convey any particular message, it did not come through, but to even be able to have an effective reach this far apart was a burgeoning development which surprised the Mandalorian jedi. The soul-bond between him and Obi-Wan was broken, but their master and padawan bond seemed to be gaining strength by the day, perhaps because they were so constantly trying to reach across greater and greater distances, just to make sure each other was still alive, pushing the boundary with sometimes desperate intent.

At least on Ben’s part. He _misses_ his padawan. He worries about him, too. Once Concord Dawn can be secured, they’ll have to attempt to make a rendezvous, just to catch more of each other than brief holocomm reports and to give Jango and Satine a chance to hash it out with each other. He means that in the best way possible.

At present, however, Ben had an impending siege to deal with, as _Kyr’stad_ regrouped, and appeared to be preparing to attempt to retake the encampment the _Haat Mando’ade_ had just routed them out of.

Frowning and leaning over the holotable, stray locks of hair slip in front of his eyes, tickling across the bridge of his nose and the edge of his cheek. He pushes it errantly back, but the shorter haircut is less obedient. Though relieved that the new cut is lighter and far less prone to tangling and matting, his neck feels bare with the neat back edge of the trim, and everything else feels ticklish. He has regrets. Not the least of which is the increase in side-eye, sly smirks.

“You should have let her cut it shorter.”

“Absolutely not.” Ben replies irritably, not bothering to glance up. The last thing he needed was to catch a glance of his reflection and see himself back in the Clone Wars.

“I _like_ his new look, _Mand’alor_.”

“Too much.” Ben mutters beneath his breath, not quite quiet enough to keep Jango from hearing, and the _Mand’alor_ snorts and claps him on the shoulder, rife with amusement.

“Some of us were blessed with beauty, _vod_.” He drawls, smirking like the bastard he was.

Ben leans deeper against the table and tilts his head haughtily, eyeing the younger man up and down. Duly having gotten an eye-full of his smug, unhelpful friend, he glances away. “ _Some_ of us, yes.” He replies, with pure coruscanti primness.

Rav Bralor guffaws, the older woman braying a laugh, and Ben ducks his chin, barely attempting to hide his grin.

A lock of hair slips in front of his face again.

~*~

 _If I was half as trusting as he seemed to think I am, I’d be twice as dead_. Satine thinks crossly, leaving the chairmans office. She knew, going in, that it was likely to be a frustrating and unfruitful meeting, which is why Obi-Wan and Sha’me were doing what Obi-Wan and Sha’me were doing, and she was providing a not particularly discreet distraction.

They did not expect that two and two would not be put together, her visit coinciding with the data breach. They just expect to be long gone before it's discovered. If they're wrong, and MandalMotors is innocent of colluding with and backing _Kyr’stad_ , Satine will ensure reparations are made. If they are guilty…

Satine struggles with herself, with her ideology and her integrity, convictions weighed against necessary concessions, and resolves herself. What she decides to do if they are guilty could – would, most likely, lead to a loss of life. Families would be torn, Clans brought to ruin, Houses dissolved, depending on where the delineation of loyalties led, and whom knew what, who was complicit, who merely looked the other way, who knew nothing at all. MandalMotors itself, a beacon of Mandalorian industry and innovation for a thousand generations, would certainly be destroyed. Thousands would lose their livelihoods, their families legacy.

Her fists clench tight as she walks, more a Mandalorian stride than the poised, graceful stroll she’d had drilled into her on Coruscant. _I do not want to lead my people into suffering_!

But she would have to. Some things cannot stand.

To allow the effigy of an organization that had seeded treason to stand was to allow their roots to regrow and blossom into further poisonous fruits.

Padawan Orikhid is a calm blue shadow in her wake, his presence reassuring rather than oppressive, as she had once imagined bodyguards to be, back when her father was particularly overprotective.

Satine steps into the lift, and Padawan Orikhid offers a gentling sort of smile, a quiet sort of ‘ _well done_ ’ mixed with sympathy and reassurance, before he steps in after her.

Then Satine gets gently but firmly moved back as her jedi protector turns and places himself firmly between her and the next person all but jumping in after them. Satine bites down aggravation, reconsidering her earlier appreciation, and eyes the slightly sweaty young man who has just joined them, gaze darting repetitively up to the tall chagrian’s stubby horns, and then down at his feet, before he manages a hesitant look askance at Satine, meeting her eyes. He’s got dark brown skin and springy hair, and while he’s wearing armored boots, he’s not in a beskargam kit. Rather he’s got sturdy pants, and a jacket with leather-plate to provide a little extra protection. There is a pair of batons on his belt, and he’s got the frame of the physically fit, but his stance is all wrong for a fighters balance, and the scrapes and callouses on his hands are more a match for a mechanic.

He holds her gaze, once he’s decided to meet it though, and ducks his head. “ _Jorad’alor_.” He murmurs, casting another nervous glance at the jedi, and then at the glass cage of the lift.

“ _Jorad’par_.” Satine corrects quietly. His fingers twitch, and he clasps them nervously. She thinks he may be a year or so younger than her. “ _Aliit_?” She inquires, gentling her already low voice. If her jedi protector isn’t tense, she doubts his nervousness is that of a would-be assassin.

He clams up and looks down at the floor, shaking his head a tiny fraction. Another nervous glance at the glass cage of the lift, and the world outside.

He scratches at his hands, and then starts tapping.

Satine is embarrassed at how long it takes her to recognize his actions as _dadita_ , mandalore’s ancient tap-code.

She’s only barely started to get the message when the lift stops, spilling them out into the grand atrium.

:: _M-M_ _hide-secret. White-go. one-hush-trouble_ ::

It’s not exactly an expressive form of communication, but Satine pieces together, after wracking her brain for dialect, that this young man is certain MandalMotors is hiding something, but has no proof for her and is trying to keep his head down. She missed the first part, but that’s rather enough for her to be going on, she thinks.

She checks Padawan Orikhid rather forcibly with her elbow, forcing him to step ahead of her, giving her a brief cover to turn and step close to the young man, clasping his arm in hers, wrist to elbow. He freezes, twitching to pull away, but looks down at her firm grip on his arm, and his fingers tighten in turn.

“All you would have to do,” She tells him. “ is walk out of here with us.”

His gaze barely meets hers. “My clan.” He utters, torn, conflicted, and _scared_. Satine understands, she does.

“It is a difficult thing,” the young duchess sympathizes, “ to go against one’s own family.”

“It’s not us. We’re not guilty. But something is… wrong.”

Satine holds his gaze, fragile as it is. “I believe you.” She states firmly. He drops his eyes, a flinching flutter of a look that tells her someone he had trusted had not. “The truth will come out.” Satine tells him, laying her other hand on his shoulder. “ And it will be better for you and your clan if you are on the right side of it when it does.”

The boy looks her dead in the eyes, fear meeting frustration. “The right side of the truth is what the victor says it is.”

“Then why approach me?” Satine questions, staring back without flinching, no matter how painful his words rang.

His gaze falters, glancing guiltily, nervously aside again. “Because I think I want you to be the winner.” He whispers.

Satine feels her lips pull, a tight, grim sort of smile. “Then fight with me, and we can win together.”

“I’m not much of a fighter, _Jorad’par_.” He offers, with a self-effacing laugh and a tightening in his fingertips, an attempt to grab at something that can’t quite be touched.

Satine almost cracks a laugh.

“The same is easily said of me, _vod_.” She remarks, remembering a conversation in a garden that seemed so long ago. “And it’s just not true. We are Mandalorian, you and I. We fight on our own terms, and no one elses, and there is more than one way to fight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: Aaaand the Desert Storm just broke 700,000 words!
> 
> I wish I was better at art so i could draw these characters as they appear in my head.
> 
> Also, trying to figure out how to balance mandalore and yinchorr now, as i've sort of finally figured out how to pace them out, but as always, mandalore has more content to divulge than yinchorr.... author problems, all.


	24. Chapter 24

“Go easy on me, Serra! I’m only a healer.” The teal-skinned, dark eyed nautolaun _jetii_ protests, her teal lightsaber just a hue lighter than her skin, striking off the dark haired _jetii_ girl’s green blade with a deep, hissing _ziiing_.

Keto backs down a little, twirling her blade more artfully than aggressively. “Some would say that makes you more dangerous than I am.” The younger padawan points out.

Padawan Casra’s head tentacles curl slightly, and she does not lunge so much as spin into Keto’s next block. “Only if I betray my oaths.” The older padawan replies cheerfully, and ducks with a flexibility her human counterpart couldn’t hope to match. Most aquatic species, after all, tended to have a more flexible skeleton than pure mammalian races.

Mavi Var’de, the oval-faced, strawberry blonde haired fifteen year old who’d been unceremoniously and humiliatingly dragged from the cockpit of her uncle’s fighter by the _shabuir manda jetiise baji’buir_ , watched them spar with crossed arms and a scowl, a few of her friends with her.

She’d earned her armor, the patterned yellow and red polished and worn with pride, and she was _ready_ to fight. But while she might have told the _jetii_ to fuck off and climbed back into that fighter, that wasn’t exactly something she could say to the _Mand’alor_ himself.

So she was stuck here, with the wounded and the unskilled and the other _ade_ her age, left without much to do but train and move supplies and fix broken equipment and fighters.

She was _bored_.

And bitterly frustrated. The fight of their time, and she couldn’t even participate. So much for being a part of the glory of history in the making.

And it was all the stupid _jetii’s_ fault.

Mavi carefully tries not to think about _why_ he’d done it, the look on his face or the way his hands shook, like her uncle’s did sometimes. _Child Soldiers_ creeps up in her thoughts anyways. She doesn’t think of herself as a child. By her peoples standard, she was an adult. Not adult enough for kids or marriage, but an adult nonetheless.

Keto lets out a laugh, and Mavi looks back to see Casra turned a splotchy shade of aquamarine, picking her _kad’au_ up off the floor.

Padawan Casra was on the edge of fourteen or fifteen, Mavi thought. But she looks at her, with her big dark eyes and her sweet manners and knows deep in her gut that a battlefield was no place for a girl like that.

Or Keto, she thinks, who was barely fourteen if that, but as much a fighter as they come.

 _Why not_? colors her mind with doubt. If Keto was fourteen, she was old enough. She had the training and the spirit.

She walked around in those heavy boots with that lightsaber on her hip and a split lip more often than not. She was hardly _soft_.

Yet Mavi is sure that _manda jetti baji’buir_ would rather die than put Keto on a battlefield.

And the thing that twists her up inside, all confused and sharp edged and uncertain, is that what he did in that hanger, humiliating as it had been, said he’d likely rather die than put Mavi on a battlefield too, as if she and Keto were just the same.

 _We’re not_ , she insists.

 _Why not_? The doubt remains.

Maybe it had something to do, she thinks, with the way that Keto liked to _fight_ , but didn’t like anybody to get _hurt_.

Mavi squirms inside, because she never quite thinks through the possibility of a fight to that eventual end. She knows what her kin would say. It happened, and some people deserved it.

“You’re a _Niman_ practioner, right?” Keto asks, and the older padawan nods. “It’s a suitable form for a healer – but I think you’d do better to incorporate a larger focus on _Soresu_.”

“I’d need a teacher. My master wasn’t…” The girl trails off, large dark eyes blinking slowly, something about her seeming to dim and crumple before she takes a deep breath and lets out a measured sigh, and the awkward, somber turn fades away.

“I can walk you through the kata.” Keto says, and does, performing each careful step slowly and deliberately, alone for the first several minutes long set of movements, and then together with Padawan Casra, offering quiet corrections with either her words or a quick touch. It’s not entirely unlike the way Mavi’s brother had taught her, when she’d first learn the blaster.

The comparison irritates her.

Mavi watches them move through the forms raptly, Yansen’s antsy shifting beside her telling her she wasn’t the only _mando’ade_ trying to memorize the motions. _Beskad_ combat, the art of the Mandalorian saber, wasn’t as widely common for a _mando’ade_ to learn as blasters or even staves, but Mavi’s mother had trained as such. But her mother hadn’t had the time to teach her – she’d died fighting alongside Duke Kryze, rallying against _Kyr’stad_ after the massacre as Galidraan.

Grief plucks at her lungs, burrows into her bones, sharp and fierce and fading into a dull throb. It’s been too long now to bring her to tears, but the loss of her mother still hurts and is never fair.

It makes her angry.

Mavi Var’de find herself marching forward, boots clipping on the duracrete beneath her feet, her friends lurching in confusion.

“So is this a _jetiise_ only training, or is the floor open?” Mavi demands.

Keto’s cool green eyes rake her up and down, assessing her for threat and earnestness. Mavi tries to keep any kind of look off her face, standing proud. Padawan Casra looks both surprised and uncertain, but not afraid. Mavi knew it irritated her peers, sometimes, that Padawan Casra seemed utterly, obliviously unafraid no matter how anybody treated her, but then, Padawan Casra was all but claimed by _Al’verde_ Ronin Murr. Anybody leaving bruises on _her_ face would be lucky to still be able to walk after he tracked them down.

Privately, Mavi thinks it has very little to do with the threat of Fett’s commander protecting her, and everything to do with her being a _jetii_ and therefor just plain weird.

Also, Padawan Keto had it right, and that must be a wisdom galaxy over – _never_ mess with a medic.

“To teach certain fighting forms to an outsider, as I understand it, can be quite the offense in Mandalorian culture.” Keto states, looking contemplative. “I’m not willing to reach you Soresu without permission.”

Mavi feels heat rise in her face, the precursor to the embarrassment of stepping up and being denied by _another_ _jetiise_ , but Keto just twirls her lightsaber and then disengages it.

“You are _not_ getting your hands on a lightsaber, so someone is going to have to produce some training sticks.” The black-haired _jetii verd’ibir_ continues, gaze boring back at Mavi and then skating over her friends, lingering back and leaned in with interest.

“So you can’t teach me or you will?” Mavi demands, confused.

“Well, I’m not going to teach you Soresu, but I can’t see why I wouldn’t be able to give you a few lessons in Shii-Cho.” The black haired girl grins.

Mavi, not understanding, at all, really, what either of those is, just nods curtly.

The padawan offers an arm, holding it out, tilted just right to be offered for a Mandalorian hold, not a handshake. There’s a gleam in those cool green eyes, defiant and daring. “Padawan Serra Keto of the Jedi Order.” She offers, and this, Mavi senses, will make or break the deal. Either Mavi acknowledges her with respect, or she can go ahead and just walk away now.

Mavi wasn’t gonna be the one to back down, especially with her friends watching. She clasps arms, wrist to elbow. “Mavi Var’de, House Mereel.”

~*~

“Orikhid, _get this ship off the ground please_!” Obi-Wan hollers over his shoulder, deep jade lightsaber furiously defending the ramp from blaster-bolts, senses alert for another attempt to lob a grenade in after them. He hadn’t quite realized what he was doing when he’d kicked the first one back out, but he’d rather not repeat the experience and risk losing a leg.

Better he catch them with the Force.

“I’m working on it!” The chagrain jedi bellows back from the cockpit, and Obi-Wan regrets, briefly and without much heart, the half-labelled mando’a controls, and the extensive and not well defined modifications that maker the _Lighthawk_ so difficult to fly for the unfamiliar. He should have been the one to charge for the cockpit, and Padawan Orikhid defending the cargo hold, but the chagrian had been the one to scoop up the duchess once the shooting had started, so he’d been the one to charge in first.

Sha’me fires back, using Obi-Wan as a very effective shield after having hauled their new acquaintance to safety behind the maintenance locker.

They hadn’t expected the databreach to be discovered quite so quickly, nor had they expected that MandalMotors would retaliate so openly.

Then again….this could just as easily, he supposes, be any one of the numerous parties trying to kill Satine Kryze. It was hard to tell without asking questions, and funnily enough, they didn’t seem keen on _talking_.

It seems to take half an age for the ramp to wheel shut, blaster-bolts scoring the inside of his ship and then zinging off the hull once they were safely seared inside. Obi-Wans lowers his blade, feeling his blood thrum in tune with the crystal. He wipes sweat off his brow with the back of one hand and brushes his hair back in the same motion. They’d had to run quite a distance. Orikhid had assisted himself with the Force, getting Satine to safety, but Obi-Wan had stayed with Sha’me and the young man that had been with Satine and the other padawan, determined not to leave them unguarded.

He disengages his lightsaber, taking in the carbon scoring on his ships, the damaged panels. Nothing too major, and then the frazzled, fairly-close-to-panicking young man ducked beside the maintenance locker. Obi-Wan steadies his breathing as best he can manage with his body still gulping for oxygen, radiates calm in the Force, and offers up a smile.

“Hello there. Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi at your service.” He introduces himself, striding over and offering the young mando an arm. He looks back up, wide-eyes and disbelieving under his springy hair, but eventually takes it when Obi-Wan doesn’t waver or retract the offer, remaining patient and steady.

“Vesh.” The young man offers, naming no clan nor house, out of fear of or concern for them, most likely. “Thanks.” He takes his arm, wrist to elbow.

Obi-Wan nods, pulling him to his feet, and ushers him further into the ship, showing him a cabin, a ‘fresher, and where the galley was before making his way up to the cockpit as a heavy shudder wobbles through the ship. He quickens his steps.

“I am a good pilot.” Orikhid informs him, the moment he enters, Satine tense and pale-faced in the co-pilots chair. “I am _not_ a great one.”

“Switch.” Obi-Wan offers, as the next shudder does more than make them _wobble_.

The exchange is hasty and they are both too focused to feel awkward at all but climbing over each other, and Obi-Wan takes the seat and the control in seconds, yanking on the yoke and punching the thrusters. The stabilizers lag in compensating, so they’re all thrown a bit, but he saves his right wing in the maneuver, so he’ll take it.

He catches a glimpse of their pursuers, the ships narrower in frame than his, but heavier in make, with one hell of a maneuvering thruster on the back end. He’s got speed and fuel-endurance n his side, but he’s got the feeling they’ve got agility and armaments on theirs.

“Those are _Ram’or_ class vessels.” Vesh appears behind Orikhid, half hiding by the bulkhead like he’s afraid of being spotted through the transparisteel viewport. _Siege Class_ , Obi-Wan thinks. _Lovely_.

“Production of siege-class vessels was banned on Mandalore generations ago.” Satine mutters angrily. Too brutally effective, if not efficient, and too many had ended up in the hands of the likes of slavers, pirates, and tyrants. Mandalore was trying to move away from that sort of reputation.

Obi-Wan would shoot her a look but he’s a little preoccupied. Has she taken a look at Mandalore lately? Her entire sector was in outright civil war, and her government was too fragmented to function in any effective administrative capacity at the moment. Legality wasn’t much appearing to concern either side. Fett stuck to the Supercommando Code, and _Kyr’stad_ apparently did whatever they deemed most effective, no matter how gruesome.

His ship is shuddering violently, and his shields can’t take much more, as he races the sky just ahead of two pursuers. He watches daylight blur into darkness, pushing the engines. He just needs to get out of atmosphere. The stablizers are having a hell of a time, and his bones are jangling.

“Obi-Wan!” Satine calls his name, though for what exactly, he couldn’t say.

He jams the input on the hyperspace nav-com, absently noting that Sha’me has found one of the turrets and is firing back. One of the vessels tries to cut him off, and Obi-Wan wonders if they’re really willing to sacrifice ship and crew just to take Satine out too.

He’s not giving them a chance. The hyperdrive fires, too much power coursing through some of the damaged circuits, and they lurch into streams of blue for barely seconds before they’re out again, strafing right into the sky of another planet.

“ _Obi-Wan_!” Satine snaps.

“ _Stop that_!” He snaps back. The yoke jerks and pulls, and their descent is more rocky than reasonable, fighting him as he tries to adjust their trajectory.

 _I can catch us if we crash_ , he thinks, watching smoke and cloud-mist stream past his viewport in blazing streams of temperature.

 _I can catch us if we crash_.

…

 _I_ just _got this ship back_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
> Kad'au - lightsaber  
> shabuir manda jetii baji'buir - bastard mandalorian jedi master  
> ade- sons and daughters  
> Al'verde - commander
> 
> Again, its not super important to memorize the new OC's.


	25. Chapter 25

“Where exactly, did you learn that?”

Ben tips his head back, looking at the mando engineer scrunched on his elbows under the shield generator with him, crawled in on his stomach whereas Ben was lying on his back.

“From my first padawan.”

“That’s a bit of crazy genius.” They remark, whistleing low through their teeth before soldering a few more connections in place, making sure nothing was loose. The generators were old, inefficient things, but Ben had a decades foreknowledge on certain mechanical systems, and nearly twenty years of exposure to Skywalker ingenuity. Just enough to rig something up to give them a little better output for a little less power.

“That would describe him very well.” Ben remarks wryly, inspecting his work as another bombardment rattles overhead the encampment, another bomber slipping through the air defenses and the _Haat Mando’ade_ fighters. Dust trickles down from the dome ceiling.

The encampment getting battered, one hell of an airfight going on overhead, but that wouldn’t last forever.

 _Kyr’stad_ , like the _Haat Mando’ade_ , would not claim – or reclaim, in this case – this post from the air. It would have to be taken from the ground. Expecting a ground attack, Fett and his commanders had units searching the grounds for any unexpected bunkers or hidden passages. The rest of them that weren’t performing mechanical or structural repairs or maintenance, were biding their time with idle tasks – cleaning their kits, or double-checking their collection of weaponry, playing cards or _cu’bikad_ and passing around ale and waiting to jump at the call.

A few of the more seasoned warriors, whose nerves would let them, were doing the smart thing and sleeping.

Ben should probably be sleeping. He hasn’t much recently, and he won’t at all if this comes down to a lingering engagement. He can practically hear Obi-Wan scolding him.

“Alright, this one’s good!” The engineer declares, slapping the ground and scuttling back out from under the generator. Ben scoots, with next to no room to move, until someone takes pity, grabs him by the ankle, and slides him out.

Ben blinks at the sudden transition, and pushes himself to sitting. “My gratitude.” He nods, and finds himself also being offered a hand up, which he accepts.

“My pleasure, _jetii_.” The mando grins, in black and the mint green of Clan Jaban. He gives the jedi an up-down look, a grin and a wink, and claps him on the shoulder before departing. Ben rolls his eyes and then his shoulders before grabbing his bucket, because lying on duracrete did him few favors, and makes his way out of the generator housing and across the way to a row of long-sheds that had been welded together to form a sort of barracks slash recreation area. Most of _verde_ were grouped by unit, having gotten used to their six-body teams, but that hardly precluded them visiting each other or making the rounds. If it weren’t for the wash of bold colors, Ben would have no trouble imaging that these were his Troopers.

The ripple that passes through them, however, when they take note of Ben, is vastly different. With his troops it was a flinch-trigger response of authority-obedience-command followed by the warmth of respect and camaraderie as they recognized him beyond his rank and status.

Here it was a turbulent mix of respect, annoyance, and amusement, with tendrils of darker undertones and lighter ones, some resentment and some relief and the occasional flash of attraction.

Ben gets waved into a larger cluster of older mandos, and he isn’t invited to sit so much as pushed down by a slightly overbearing helpful hand, but he sits, and he gets a few hard, lingering looks and nods, and someone shoves a mug of _netra’gal_ into his hands; a sweet, almost spicy black beer. He looks down, seeing something swirling in the bottom as the light turns the liquid a gleaming brown against the polished steel. Leaves, he thinks, most likely _behot_ , which was a slight stimulant with the added benefit of being an antiseptic.

 _Alcohol and stimulants_ , he thinks ruefully. Both things his Healers would have fits about him having. He glances up, and while no one is staring, per se, conversations still moving along, he’s getting glances, his company waiting for him to drink.

Ben feels a lip twitch, thinking back on all the cultural studies that have been done on social bonding and libation and the combinations thereof, cups his hands around his mug, and uses the Force to cook out the alcohol. When he takes a drink, it’s certainly much less pleasant than it would be, and he grimaces.

The yellow-skinned, armored twi’lek in Skirata colors next to him chuffs. “Don’t tell me _jetiise_ don’t drink?”

“Prior alcoholics tend not to.” Ben replies gamely. Oh, _that_ earns him looks.

“Take that from him, you skud.” One of the older women in House Kryze colors snaps, and the twi’lek reaches for his mug.

“It’s fine.” Ben demurs, and makes a disgruntled sound when it is taken from him anyway, by a familiar tan hand. Fett leans over his shoulder, plucks it from his gasp, and Ben looks him in the eye when he quaffs it. The _Mand’alor_ gurks, swallows half of it and spits the rest, and scowls like thunder at the ring of mandalorians. “What the fuck did you-“

“I said it was _fine_.” Ben cuts him off, wondering if Fett dropped in so readily because he’d already been present, or if he has someone reporting to him every time Ben gets involved with his people. “The taste is my fault. It’s a jedi trick.” He explains.

Fett shoves the mug back at him. “You do that when you drink with me?” Jango demands, suspicious.

“I do not.” Ben refutes sharply. It would be dishonorable and disingenuous, to let his _vod_ drink himself into a stupor, believing his company was doing the same, when some of the things they talked about drew into dark, difficult territory. If he wasn’t going to drink with Fett, he told him outright, opting for tea. If he was going to drink, then he damn well drank.

“ _Tihaar_ and brandy are a hell of a lot stronger than black ale.” Jango grouses skeptically.

“Different circumstances.” Ben replies mildly, not breaking his gaze. Jango eyes him sharply and nods, understanding enough of it, at least. Ben, for his part, doesn’t want to run the risk of relying on a bottle to get him through the aftermath of a battlefield.

“What jedi trick?” A short, stout besalisk with a warbling voice and grey-on-green armor rasps out. The pattern is unique, so Ben couldn’t call out his Clan or House from the coloring alone.

“Burning the alcohol out.” Ben replies, looking back to the circle and hoping they didn’t hold it against him.

“ _Cheap_!” Someone hoots, unoffended and cheerful, and Ben snorts. Jango gets passed a cup that isn’t spoiled, and parks himself next to Ben with a grunt. He’s tense – he carries tension, often hyped with vicious anger and vengeance and undercurrents of _guilt-grief_ – but being with his people softens his edges, even when he’s arguing with them.

“Alright, I can’t take it, is any of you bastards gonna ask? Someone’s gotta ask – _jetiise_ can drink, can _jetiise_ have sex?”

Ben, affronted, glares at the speaker, who has a shit eating grin across her face and gets smacked upside the head by the woman next to her, both with the same style striping over the buckets in their laps, if in different colors.

“ _Jetiise_ aren’t _celibate_.” Jango snorts. “They just aren’t allowed _ade_.”

A grin. “ _Mand’alor_ , is that a confession? Because there are some real credits on-“

“Wait, hold on, what about _his_ kid?” Someone cuts them off.

 _What_? Ben looks at the speaker, baffled. “Beg pardon?”

“ _Jetiise_.” Jango says slowly, tone hard with warning, posture all looming authority. “Are _not allowed_ families.”

Ben turns and gives Jango a piercing, puzzled look. The _Mand’alor_ glances at him with a pinched half-grimace, slightly apologetic, as if…

As if what?

“I’ve got eyes, _Mand’alor_ , and I can’t be the only one.” Arms lifted, seeking agreement from the crowd. “His boy is his spittin’ image.”

“ _Di’kut_ , shut _up_.” Someone growls, jabbing them in the side.

It dawns on Ben, then, what they’re talking about. Who. Obi-Wan. They think _Obi-Wan_ is his _son_.

And, apparently, so does Jango Fett.

“They can be a Jedi or they can have a family. Not both.” Jango mutters, scornful and bitter, shifting next to Ben uncomfortably. “So watch your mouth.” He orders, with that aggressive protectiveness that warns them not to get their _jetiise_ in trouble.

The sentiment is touching, if horribly misplaced.

Ben, perplexed and faintly embarrassed, takes a swallow of his dreadful beer, clears his throat, opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. He looks down into his beer, which gleamed a murky caramel against the polished shine of the steel mug. “That is likely to change.” He murmurs.

“ _Tatugir_?” Someone hedges, asking him to repeat himself, or clarify, he supposes.

“A dear friend of mine recently delivered of a delightfully loud little girl.” Ben smiles, nodding in acknowledgement of a few quick congratulations. “And at this point in time, the Order has given their implicit approval, if not their explicit permission.”

Though he imagined Shmi was probably working on the documentation already to take the uncertainty out of the question. There had been a rather large gap in oversight, he knows, regarding the sudden influx of disciples and journeyman who had been recalled to the fold with families of their own already. What to do, specifically, about such instances, had been largely left to sort itself out while the Council handled other matters. It had left many in the lurch, waiting to see what would happen.

“Hold on, that’s some real bantha-shite right there, if they can just change the rules on whether or not you’re allowed a family.” Someone spits, with an accent that say they weren’t raised Mandalorian. There is a resounding mutter of agreement at that, and Ben suffers the rise in sour derision and loathing for his people, itching at his skin.

“People do what they have to when they’re facing extermination.” Ben mutters.

“ _What_?” Jango snaps that out, as does the Skirata twi’lek on his other side.

Ben grimaces at himself and scrubs a hand over his face, giving the _Mand’alor_ a blunt look. “The Jedi Order is dying. Without great effort – efforts we are making, in spite of….” Ben shakes his head, cutting that off. “My padawans grandpadawans generation would be one of the last, provided our eradication isn’t helped along even more aggressively.”

“Good riddance.” Someone scoffs, more a weak joke than meant in malice.

Ben seeks out the speaker’s gaze regardless, measuring each mando his gaze passes over in turn, a anger stirring in his gut even as he holds his calm. “And what would replace us?” He offers, more harshly than he intended. “Force-Sensitives are born the galaxy over, with or without the Jedi Order. I could point out half a dozen among the _Mando’ade_ in this room alone.” Only three, perhaps, with the strength to have been accepted into the Temple as a youngling, and only two of those who could actually use that strength. Mandalorian training honed enough of their instincts and senses to give them that measure of control. Mostly it enhanced their capabilities, their reflexes.

“And they do just fine.” A woman in black and silver remarks.

“ _Mando’ade_ take care of their own.” Ben tips his head. “That’s true. That’s good. And outside of the Order, outside of the _Mando’ade_ and similar systems who can identify and accommodate such talents, what do you think happens to Force-Sensitive children? You think their communities understand and accept them? You think they get to live normal lives, ignoring the fact that what they can sense and feel and do cannot be compared to by those around them?”

He doesn’t mean it to be an accusation. He doesn’t.

“Do you know how many of those children are abused and outcast? How many end up in slavery? Or in cults? Or as the lone survivor of a catastrophe who has no idea why they were spared when everyone they loved wasn’t? Do you know that some of them make _prize_ trophies to be hunted for sport? Or turned into experiments? Or made into _weapons_?”

“ _Ben_.”

His hands are shaking, and he clenches one into a fist, relaxes it, makes a fist again. Breathes.

“And what about beyond the individuals?” Ben offers, quieter, more controlled, but his anger is still simmering to the surface. “What about the services we offer the galaxy? The medical aid, the refugee transportation, the educational ventures, the agricultural response – Mandalore itself, were it not so opposed, would benefit remarkably from an outpost of the AgriCorps. There are entire systems who would starve, or fall to plague, or fail to establish galactic standards of civilization, without our aid. Can you even comprehend what happens to them when my Order is destroyed?”

Bn doesn’t even have to _imagine_. He knows what happens to them. He watched it happen.

Jango sighs, reaches over, and swaps their mugs. “Drink that.” He orders quietly, resigned. Ben glowers at him, and takes his alcohol-free, awful beer back.

“I’m fine.” He mutters.

“In looks, maybe, _jetii_ ,” A cogdy old solider in blood red snorts. “But not in the head.”

Ben quirks a sardonic brow. “Then I’m in good company.”

The tension eases with a few coarse snorts and scoffs, most mandalorians used to tempers that flashed and faded, to dealing with them as they came and went. Soon enough they’re back to ribbing each other and asking inappropriate questions and telling tall tales, watching the dust quake from the support beams and the transparisteel panes rattle when the bombs flash off the shields.

Two old timers even start ribbing Jango about his teenaged years, because they were around then and they remember Mereel’s scrappy shadow, and that moves on talking about who’s got teenagers now, which brings up Bo-Katan and Obi-Wan and half a dozen others, foolish and bold and all the rest that came with youth, and Ben leans into it, the solidarity, the smart-ass remarks, embarrassing advice and meaningless arguments lacquered over loyalty and unified purpose and adrenaline-heightened anticipation.

Jango catches his eye a couple of times, a steady look passing between them both, wordless agreements made and expected to be upheld. Ben’s hands stop shaking, and he meets those glances just as steadily, nodding.

There are things they’ll talk about later, adding up like inevitability for whenever later reasonable comes, but for now, for now in this moment, they’re on the same page and the same side and nothing matters but the fight they’re facing today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
> Tatugir - repeat.


	26. Chapter 26

Coruscant is having a beautiful, watercolor day, and the entire Jedi Temple is suffering from a teeth-grinding, murky sense of heavy pressure.

The more prescient among them slept restlessly, the more empathic are suffering from headaches, and the entire corps of Temple Guardians is having a stressful, frustrating day of waiting in tension for whatever is about to go wrong to go wrong so they could _deal with it_.

Unnoticed amongst the usual streaming traffic, a single unmarked vessel makes a slow, deliberate descent into the undercity behind the Jedi Temple, moving down, down, down…

~*~

Bruck Chun shifts his tunics and scratches at his neck, feeling itchy and unsettled, like insects were crawling through his clothes. He’s already changed twice today, and still the feeling persists. He’s not alone in that.

So the ping on his comm, the invitation to leave the Temple to meet with Xanatos, is something of a relief, when he’s otherwise been dreading such notices, conflicted and uneasy about the lessons he learns under Du Crion, and the lessons he teaches to younglings in the creche. The difference seems so much starker, so much harsher, and he knows, deep down, that what he learns from Du Crion is wrong, and it leads to the Dark Side.

It’s just…

He’s _good_ at it. And it makes him feel powerful, it makes him feel giddy and strong and so certain…

But when that fades, when the span between visits grows long…

He _doubts_ , and it turns his appetite and disturbs his sleep.

But he doesn’t think he can give it up. The Temple is the only real place that felt like _home_ , but sometimes he still doesn’t quite feel like he _belongs_ , and when that gets to be too much, Xanatos makes him feel like it doesn’t matter, like he can own the world, and those feelings are meaningless.

Sometimes he thinks Xanatos makes those feelings worse. It’s like he _feels_ better when he visits the older man, but what he thinks of himself, and everyone else, it gets worse. So his need to go back to Xanatos is all the more potent.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Everyone is distracted and restless. It makes it too easy to leave the temple for a while.

~*~

Fay can feel the unease in the temple like a miasma in her lungs, like an ache in her bones, and does her best to try and draw on calm, to try and ease anxiety and fear and anger. It is…surprisingly difficult, given her strength and her reach and her intimacy with the Force. But the fog that clouds her senses is both elusive and cloying, refusing to be grasped and refusing to leave.

Even stalwart Shmi Skywalker is unsettled, her shields drawn tight, her small frame tense, her manner reverting to a more skittish nature. Only little Omi Skywalker seemed utterly unaffected, but then the infant was subjected to so much protective love and adoration Fay doubted the child could sense anything else.

Her delightful presence may or may not have to do with why Fay had sought out Shmi’s presence today, with very little pretense of having a reason to be shadowing the younger woman. They walk from the dawn atrium to the dusk atrium, Shmi bouncing burps out of a gassy baby, more or less used to being hovered over at this point.

Adi Gallia catches them passing through, her clipped stride altering course as she abruptly cuts off a holocall on her comm, shaking her head and rubbing at her tight brow.

“Adi.” Fay greets, lifting a golden eyebrow. “Any reports of note?” She inquires, exuding a little more focus to soothe away the dull threads of _stress-worry_ that were clinging to the young tholotian Master.

“Fay, Knight Skywalker.” Master Gallia replies, a tad more terse than usual, her hair pods stiff with tension and likely a headache. Fay knows poor Master Sifo-Dyas was bedridden with a migraine, and Yoda has spent most of the morning in private meditation for his own aches and pains. In all honesty, it felt like the weight of some miserable storm waiting to break over the Jedi.

Judicial Forces, along with their Jedi contingent, had been engaged in combat in the Yinchorri system for the better end of a week, trying to break through the fleet, and Fay was deeply concerned that something awful was about to unfold on that front.

Though the speculation did not quite sit right. The danger, she feared, felt like it would happen closer to home, like a shadow at the corner of her eye she just couldn’t quite see, slipping around the edges of her senses.

Given that they hadn’t felt like this even when the _Temple’s Bane_ was incubating inside these hallowed halls, she is exceedingly concerned.

“Our errant four jedi have been reunited with the rest of their team, though it appears there were some severe injuries. There was also something about whales and piracy and Mace unable to quite figure out how to both commend and reprimand Padawans Jeisel and Vosa.” Adi shakes her head, violet eyes looking fondly bemused.

“That little girl is a _delight_.” Fay remarks, rather pleased with the nature of her thrice-great-grandpadawan. As to her twice-great grandpadawan, Fay isn’t so sure. Something about that feisty, brittle young woman was both engaging and alarming.

“Her master deserves her.” Is all Adi remarks to that, and then the brown skinned woman sighs. Amusement crumbling under the persistent, pervading warning over their heads and in their hearts.

Omi Skywalker lets out a gurgle, little feet kicking energetically, and her mother looks first down and then turns.

The loud clatter of running feet catch the other two women’s attention a few seconds later, fit to come bursting out of a side corridor, accompanied by the blazing trail of energy that could only be one child in particular.

“Jax!” Anakin Skywalker shouts, voice carrying off the walls. They see the brown-eyed boy first however, racing into the corridor with his brother swift on his heels; Anakin’s eyes were wide, expression as shrill as his voice had been as he follows the other boy. The younger of the two spies his adoptive mother, face stark with panic.

Shmi is already moving towards them, Fay and Adi right behind her, each of them blinded by alarm.

“ _Mom_!” The boy who _never_ speaks cries out tearily, terrified, reaching up to yank his beaded necklace over his head, and his mind slams against them before his little body does, crashing into his mothers legs, a rush of pure emotion and raw imagery; behind their eyes the world _exploding_ -

~*~

Captain Jude Rozess won’t even feel guilty, later, that she is _relieved_ when the alert comes through and the alarm is raised. She loathes, with impatience, the helplessness of waiting for harm to befall people she is to protect. The Force, for all its efforts, was not entirely helpful in its warnings.

The captains all report in, assigning their squads to the various sectors: The Halls, the Gardens, the Creche, The Elderly Qaurters, and the Archives.

The evacuation order goes out and the Jedi respond immediately, the imminence of the threat unknown, the location likewise, only that there was a very high potential for a bomb about to be going off.

Jude questions how that’s even possible, given the security grid and the already heightened alert in the Temple, having been warned trouble may be coming, but she pushes the doubts and niggleing, probing questions down. They do not matter. All that matters is that the threat is presumed to be there, and so she must act with the assumption that it is. She’ll get her answers later.

Teachers and Instructors all collect their classes and move, scooping up stray Padawans and Disciples along the way, tagging each of them by Ident for the emergency roster. Knights and Master all round up their neighbors, ensuring everyone in their vicinity is moving along safely. Specialized units are sent to ensure the security the Vaults and the Armory, reporting in to the Battlemaster and the Head Archivist.

The Temple Guard Captain cuts into a service passage to escape the outward flow of the evacuating population and navigates her way towards the creche, climbing a ladder to an uninhabited maintenance level, where servers and generators and utilities ran and could be worked on, only to find it not so uninhabited.

Three hulking figures loom in the blue-yellow-ultraviolet light of control circuits and power conduits, utterly blank to her in the Force, moving like they actually knew where they were going.

 _They had to know_ , she realizes quickly, _to even get here_.

A chill rolls straight down to her stomach, cold and angry and unimportant right now, as she takes her lightstaff in hand, preparing to engage.

She activates the all-call switch in her face-plate, and takes a breath. The space was cluttered, the floor a mess of cables and piping and abandoned tools. Not ideal. Not impossible to work with, either.

“ _Hostiles are in the Temple_.” She reports, snapping an image off her holo-feed for the rest of the Temple Guards, and ignites her lightstaff, the shining yellow blades spilling a sunrise across the darkened room.

~*~

Xanatos can be generous and charming, when he wants to be, and Bruck finds him in a surprisingly good mood. They train is sabers for the morning, and he’s even almost playful about it.

Bruck actually has _fun_.

He ignores the chirp on his comm, not wanting to bother with some reprimand for missing a class right now, not when his day is actually turning out pretty good. Xanatos gets a message on his own not too long after though, so the sparring stops, and Bruck reluctantly gives up the saber he’s been allowed to borrow, one that has real power coursing through it, instead of the weak trickle of temple training blades.

As ever, Xanatos has arranged for a ridiculously fancy overpriced lunch, and Bruck digs in with relish, grinning at the older man, who smirks back and turns on the news feeds.

There is a crackle of static, and before the images even appear, a rush of horror floods through him, the Force like a bursting dam, strong and brutal enough that he chokes, coughing harshly.

Xanatos hands him a glass of juice, and he gulps. His eyes stream and he scrubs at them, and it takes a minute to finally see the feed, to make sense of the broadcast, of jedi spilling out of the Temple into the crowded plaza and surrounding district, the holo-cordon up around the Temple District like a finish line banner, all of them trying to get to it, to get _out_ -

Bruck’s heart stutters in his chest, the Force giving one last warning cry that lashes him from head to toe with sharp, screaming dread.

There is a deep, muted pound of a sound, followed by several more. The reporter on the holo turns, confused, and then the rodian’s starry eyes widen in terror, and Bruck feels it; the deep, immense shudder from below, grumbling and then roaring and then shaking the walls even two districts over.

They don’t get earthquakes on Coruscant, none that can be felt this many levels up.

Bruck can’t breathe, clinging to the table, his drink sloshing in the glass, the crystal fixture above them rattling cheerily. He looks to Xanatos, for guidance, or answers, or reassurance, and what he gets is to watch a lazy smile spread across a near flawless face, sapphire blue eyes greedily watching the feed.

His own gaze drags to the feed, reluctant and unable to do anything else. It happens slow, and Bruck just _watches_.

People in the plaza stumble and panic, moving faster, but the disciple can tell that that’s not _everyone_ , not nearly, not yet-

There are bone deep, jarring snaps, cracking like thunder, more felt than heard. Great, dark fissures appear, darting upwards in streaks and jolts over two towers –

The Creche and the Council Towers (Bruck knows, as well as he knows the alphabet and the feel of a saber in his hands) – crumbling from the foundations up, dust sluicing into the air, transparisteel shattering like diamonds, sparkling as it rains down. The base of the ziggurat doesn’t so much crumble as sags, and then starting to _slide_ -

“- _stand and hold it_!” A voice carries over the shouting, the confusion, the panic, the rumbling of breaking marble and shattering transparisteel, fair and commanding and inescapable. Bruck does more than hear it through the feeds, he can practically feel the command, bursting in his chest.

Beside him, Xanatos makes an irritated ‘tsk’.

The camera finds Master Fay, golden hair blazing in the sun, mist grey eyes nearly shining with power, the motion around her turning from chaos to harmony, a ripple of focus spreading outwards as knights and masters stop, gather a single second to breathe and take a stand, and turn back, raising their arms to-

The shivering towers grind and waver, stone chunking out in heavy blocks and near liquified dust, shudders still rolling through the ground, but they _do not fall_ , not _yet_.

 _They’re holding it_. Bruck watches in terror and awe. _They’re actually holding the collapse_.

Panic fades in the square, falling into a hush of focus, of held breath and hope. Even padawans, disciples and initiates calm and turn solemn, some small faces scrunching up in concentration, hands rising shakily, trying to help.

Xanatos scoffs, amused and derisive, and Bruck looks at him, shock and ugly outrage rocking surging through his body like a tide.

Xanatos tenses, turns, and sneers, sensing it. “What?” He pries silkily.

“What did you _do_?” Bruck demands.

That smirk sharpens, cruel and cold and careless. He laughs, genuinely, truly _pleased_ with himself. “Nothing you didn’t make possible.” He drawls, voice like velvet. “So thank you for that, Bruck, and _cheers_.” He toasts him, gaze boring into the padawan, holding him like a vice, like a hand around his throat. “The Jedi are only getting what they deserve. We agreed they deserved to be punished, did we not?”

Revulsion fills his entire being, making him physically ill. He glances at the screen again, white-uniformed Temple guards rushing dust-laden jedi down the front steps, carrying a small clan of younglings who had been so close to the exit when the bombs went off, all but dragging a wounded knight behind them.

Bruck can’t – he can’t –

He turns and runs for the door.

“Do you really think you can go back?” Xanatos calls loftily, stopping him as sharply as yanking a leash.

Fear strikes him, deep and pervasive, and he looks back. Xanatos has cleared that ugly expression of his face. He looks calm, expectant, waiting for Bruck to slink back to the table, to sip champagne and eat ridiculously expensive food and watch – and watch-

“Do you really think you can make it out there without me? That you are _anything_ , without me?”

Anger, different than usual. Not black and acidic, but strong and potent, filling his bones with heat. His heart hammers, his throat closes up, and his eyes sting helplessly.

_I don’t know. I don’t know._

Xanatos offers a palm in his direction, a silent, demeaning invitation to come crawling back; promising forgiveness for his fragile heart, promising guidance, and protection.

Bruck is so angry, and so _scared_ , guilt and shame making his skin crawl. He is _lost_ , lonely _need_ rooting him to the spot like a frightened youngling caught in the dark. He feels trapped, and powerless.

His eyes drag to the newsfeed, his senses involuntarily, inescapably attuned to what is happened in the next district over; to the jedi’s fear, and their determination. Hundreds of them in that square, trying to keep the towers from collapsing. That was their home, _his_ home, crumbling at the foundations, falling to pieces.

Because of him.

Great slabs crack, roaring as they crash against the structure still standing, hitting the lower levels with titanic shudders. Bruck flinches.

Inexplicably, he thinks of Obi-Wan. About his crechemate who may as well have been a sibling, a boy who was clumsy and emotional, who fumbled and fell behind and failed, who now was someone who could make the world be what he wanted it to be by sheer force of will and faith alone.

Bruck hates him for it, and envies him, and knows that _that_ sort of power? That strength? That is not anything he’ll ever learn from a man like Xanatos.

Bruck is very good, the white-haired boy thinks miserably, at breaking things. He knows this, as he watches one of the towers finally succumb to its fate, splitting down the middle and cleaving like a felled tree; the jedi holding it collapsing to their knees in turn, their strength utterly spent. Some of them bow so low their faces touch the ground, buckled with failure and pain as much as overextension.

And he sees, in this awful moment, that if he gives in and walks back to Xanatos Du Crion, if he stays and chooses this path, that is all he will ever be good at. Hurting people and breaking things.

In another second, five seconds, ten, he knows he’ll crumble just like those jedi did, trying to resist forces far greater than themselves.

He doesn’t give himself the time to give in.

“I guess I’ll find out.” Bruck spits, and bolts.


	27. Chapter 27

Her knees bite into tile, a watery popping crackling through her lekku from overstimulation, echoing the roar and vibration and chaos that came before, that still rung in her bones. A breeze stirs at her back, and her shaky, numb arms are full of warm-bodied, terrified younglings.

“Master Se?” Kai, one of her eldest, whimpers, the human boy snugly plastered to her side. Her clan are all shaking – _she’s_ shaking, trembling with terror and shock and adrenaline. Urine and fear sours the air, and dust coats everything. She can hear water gurgling, sloshing from burst pipes, and electricity snapping from ripped conduit and cabling.

Her clan is all but crushed against the wall by her desperation, caught in a corridor when the tower started to give. She had felt it, rumbling up from deep below like some snarling, massive beast out of nightmare. Se’sannima dares to turn her head and look, blinking to clear dust and tears from her eyes, and just a few yards behind her, the rest of the corridor gives way to an open chasm, a ragged maw with dank air gusting up from the lower levels, tumbling rubble and sirens still sounding.

She closes her eyes and lets her head fall against a furred crest, clinging to her younglings all the more fiercely. “We’re all alright.” She murmurs, relief shaking her to the core. She had prayed and she had tried _so_ hard to will the Force to protect them, but when the tower was coming down, when it felt like the whole world would crush them-

She forces those thoughts away, that all-consuming moment of despair deep down where it could not touch her. She will – she will deal with it later.

She is alive. She will have the chance to deal with it _later_.

“We’ll be all right.” She soothes, running shaky fingers over knobby skulls and furred ears and dry skin. “Just sit tight. Our friends will come for us.”

Their little ledge clung to the wall, but there was no way they were making it out on their own. Even if Se’sannima had the strength to stand, which she doesn’t think she does at the moment, she’s not sure that what remains of the floor could support all of them, or whether she could support what remains of the floor, and she has no idea if the door on the end, could they even make it that far, would open at all.

“Master Se, I’m really _scared_.” Voice wobbling, tear-stained and sniffling. The twi’lek chrechemaster reaches carefully to cup the little boys cheek.

“I know. I’m scared too. But we’re here together, aren’t we? And our friends are coming for us. This fear will pass.” She promises.

Behind her, another broken chunk of duracrete crumbles and gives way, the tile overlay sagging as it falls and clatters on the destruction below. Her younglings flinch and whimper. Above them, what remains of the ceiling groans. Se’sannima glares at the sky, and wills the Force to preserve them.

Someone had once told her that creche mentoring was one of the safest and most rewarding roles a jedi could serve in.

She wonders, painfully, when that ceased to be true.

She takes a deep, measured breath, and another, trying not to cough. “How about I sing for you, hm? Come on, scooch a little closer to the wall – that’s it!” She offers them a smile, hoping it looks less forced than it is. “There now, how about…”

~*~

“Don’t let me fall!” Feral cries.

“I won’t!” Leska swears, even as dust and crumbled stone skitters over their heads, sloughing off broken flooring above them, Leska holding painfully tight to Feral, Feral holding painfully tight to Leska. The both of them straining to balance each other as they hung over a collapsed pillar, the depth below them uncertain, the Temple above them swallowed in stone. It was near pitch black, save for the occasional flash of sparks, and they could hear the architecture moaning in stress. “I’ve got you.”

Her arms burn, and his fingers dig into to her skin painfully, but she bites her lip and bears it. He sniffles, breath hitching, and Leska listens to the darkness.

“I want my b-brother.” Feral whimpers.

Leska feels her own eyes well up with tears, and her hands ache for holding on, her legs swinging over an unknown abyss. She really wants to cry too, but she’s older than Feral, even if not by much, and Master Plo says you always have to look out for those who are younger and smaller than you, because they can’t always look out for themselves. She’s gonna have to be strong for him. She can do this.

They were too deep in the temple to have made it out before the ground started cracking beneath them. Not for lack of trying, though. They’d all been in the corridor, her and the Nightbrothers and Master Plo, and then – and then there had been so much _noise_ , and the floor had pushed _up_ at them, and then everything had fallen _down_ , collapsing underneath in a heave of heat.

Sweat makes her hands clammy, and Feral’s fingers, for all that they were cutting into her skin, were slipping.

Leska bites her lip.

She is not going to cry. She’s a Jedi. She needs to be calm, and rational, and think this through. She needs to look out for her little brother padawan. She needs to be brave.

They are not going to be able to hold on much longer.

“Feral.” She whispers, squeezing, though there is already so much pressure in her grip she’s not sure he’ll even feel the difference. “Feral.”

“Leska?”

He’s too young to be a padawan, really. She’s barely old enough.

“Feral, I’m gonna – I’m gonna pull, just a little, okay?” Leska tells him, thinking it through, heart in her throat, her stomach in painful knots. “I’m gonna pull, and you’re gonna slide up, okay? You’re gonna slide up, and you’re gonna get on top of the pillar, and I want you to hold onto it, okay? You’re gonna get on top of the pillar, and you’re gonna hold on.”

“You’ll fall!” He blurts.

Leska takes a moment to swallow, and sucking a sharp breath through her nose. “I won’t fall.” She insists, trying to sound unafraid. “I’m gonna jump, okay?”

“No!”

“Feral!” Leska’s voice goes thin and sharp and watery, and she bites her tongue and swallows again. _There is no emotion_ , she thinks. _There is peace_. “Feral, we’re gonna slip if we don’t do something. I’m gonna make sure you’re safe, okay? And then I’m gonna jump. I can catch myself.”

It’s not a lie. She’s just not sure if it’s true. She’s never caught herself like this, without knowing how far she’s gonna fall, without knowing when the ground was coming up, without knowing what might be in her way. She’d just – she’d just have to trust the Force.

She was a Jedi. She could do that.

“Please don’t leave me alone!” He begs. “Leska, please!”

His fingers dig in tighter, and it _hurts_ , and her own are practically numb.

“We’re not alone, Feral. The Force is with us, and Master Plo is going to come for us. We just have to stay safe till then, right? That’s all we’re doing, Feral, we’re staying safe. Which means you need to climb on top of the pillar, and I need to jump, because if we slip, I don’t think I can catch both of us. Okay?”

It’s not his fault he doesn’t know how to stop a drop like that. He’s had so much else to learn, some things just… hadn’t come up yet.

“Feral, please tell me you understand.” Leska pleads, tears running down her face she’s glad he can’t see, that she’s glad he can’t call out of her voice.

He sniffles, muffling a quiet cry against his arm. “…okay.” He mumbles miserably.

Leska sucks in another breath through her nose. “Okay.” She whispers back.

She swings her feet, kicking blindly for the underside of the pillar. Her weight drags her down, pulling him up in a painful, shoulder-wrenching scoot. He whines, and Leska’s breath hitches twice, heart hammering as she looks down and sees absolutely nothing. Not beneath her, not around her.

 _Okay_.

 _Okay_.

She shimmies, and this time the shift is bigger and more abrupt, a quick, jerky slide. One of Feral’s hands disappears, clinging to the pillar, and Leska releases the other one with a gasp.

“ _Leska_!”

~*~

“We’re getting tectonic stabilizers up as fast as we can, but there is no undoing the damage. What we’ve managed to hold together – it won’t last.” Master Tahl reports, the noorian archivist looking ragged after their efforts. The devices were the same used in archeological explorations.

“I am less concerned with the structure than the lives trapped within it. Towers can be rebuilt, lives….” Fay replies somberly, mouth a tight line. “It only has to hold _long enough_.”

“We’ll ensure that it does.” The master replies, not holding her terse reply against her, gaze drifting towards the broken towers; in addition to the creche and council towers, a portion of the great dome was shattered in collapse, rescue crews were vying for airspace with holo-news crafts, gravity catches being set up below, to catch further rubble and keep it from wreaking destruction – more destruction – on the lower levels.

Luckily much directly below the temple was old temple, mostly abandoned save for utilities and structural maintenance, but there were still lives down there, crowded around the ancient foundations, uncaring and likely unknowing what rose so far above them they’d never see it.

Till days like today.

Jedi are packed into the plazas and streets that make up the Temple district, from the outside appearing with determined focus, if not outright eerie calm. Fay was doing her best to channel _calm_ through her peers in the Force, to keep fear and despair from overwhelming them – and anyone unfortunate enough to be that close to that many upset Force-Sensitives.

Fay glances across the square, though her senses tell her well enough where her people are, what state they’re in. Medical staff are treating the injured right there in the open, mostly shock and bruises, a few broken bones and concussions, a few traumatic response cases. Of course, those were just the ones that had made it out.

The structural damage to the Temple was catastrophic in a way that Fay does not trust to be as it appears. The Temple was built like a fortress, and followed every rigid guideline Coruscant had for stacking cityscape on top of endless cityscape. Even struck at the foundations, the damage should not have been so _pervasive_. But she cannot truly judge until a deeper analysis is done.

The physical loss is immense, but the loss of life….

She closes her eyes, and lets herself feel, and is _relieved_. They have lost jedi today, but they have lost _dozens_ where they could have lost _hundreds_ if not _thousands_. More than a thousand are injured, hundreds more trapped yet, either in the rubble or by collapse between them and their exits, but Jedi have a knack for surviving that which would kill another being.

She opens her mist grey eyes again and finds Jax Skywalker among the crowd, dead asleep on Master Tholme’s shoulder, the psychic input too much for his consciousness once the Temple started collapsing. Minutes of warning had saved hundreds of lives, thanks to that little boy. Her gaze drifts to his brother, crankily resisting sleep while he lists into his mothers’ side, sitting on the ground as they were. Hundreds of Jedi had turned and helped to hold the Temple, folded into her Battle Meditation to act with one cohesive intent, and still she had _felt_ it when that little boy’s power joined theirs. A floodgate of energy that had overwhelmed some, too much for their already pushed limits and tapped reserves to handle, and bolstered others.

Desert sky blue eyes meet her gaze, drooping, and Fay smiles fondly. ‘ _Rest, little one_.’ She mouths across the distance, refraining from trying any mental projections while still maintaining an emotional field across the district. His eyes slip shut and Shmi Skywalker glances down, full of fierce love and pride and a mothers’ ever-present worry. She brushes her fingers through his dark blonde hair, and he snuggles in closer.

“Master Fay?” She turns, to find a set of senior Archivists and ExploraCorps journeymen approaching her, stubborn determination burning through them. “We’ve got twelve teams put together for rescue, every one of them experienced in unstable structures. We’d like permission to begin as soon as they’ve got the stabilizer grid up and running.”

“Consider permission granted.” Fay replies serenely, expecting no less of Jedi. “Kindly make sure our Healers don’t try and charge in without you.” She’d had that argument with Vokara Che already, trying to get her people back inside while everything was still settling. She doesn’t think the formidable Chief Healer would back down a second time.

“We’ll try and keep up with them.” The Journeyman replies wryly.

“Thank you.” Fay replies, meeting their eyes. They look back, a knowing passing between all three of them, of the effort it takes, to push off the shock and the enormity of what has just happened, and continue to do their best. “And Force be with all of us.”

The archivist looks to the towers, and the thousands of jedi safe and still alive in the square, as brilliant in the Force as sunlight off snow.

“It was today.” They murmur, and Fay can’t help but agree.


	28. Chapter 28

A communications officer flags down Mace and Master Giett with slack mouthed shock, trying and failing to say something, anything, as they draw towards him. Mace searches himself, and the Force, but cannot find what catastrophe might put a man into such a state. Master Dooku and Padawan Choi were still recovering in medical, their presence weak but persistent, both stubbornly alive. Qui-Gon, Master Narec and their padawans were all out in fighters, burning like shooting stars amid the fireworks of the firefight, harrying the Yinchorri fleet to prevent them from flanking the judicial forces. As best he could tell, none of them were about to explode or had exploded. Depa was with the Besh-42’s, working with the Advanced Tactical Support unit in planning an infiltration assault on one of the vessels they’d identified as a potential command ship; and Master Yaddle was deep in meditation, leaning on the Force for guidance, for a hint or a clue on how to break this deadlock.

“What have we got?” Master Giett asks gamely, dropping an affable hand on the officers shoulder and leaning over with a good-natured smile. If one ignored the pinched crinkle at the corner of his eyes, he would seem completely at ease, a bedrock amid chaos.

“Sirs, I…” The officer swallows, swivels his chair, and presses a button, playing a feed that speaks every one of a thousand things he couldn’t manage to say.

As soon as it registers, Mace closes his eyes, but too late – he has already _seen_ it.

“When?” He asks, voice controlled and level. “When did this happen?”

“A…a few hours ago, jedi sir.” The officer manages.

Mace nods, opening his eyes and looking away, out the transparisteel, across the flashing lights of fighters weaving through each other, and shields flaring as they hit and ricocheted, to the looming ships beyond, and the planet beyond that, vague warnings suddenly coalescing into perfect clarity.

 _Damn it, Ben_. He thinks, angry and shaken. Why hadn’t the man just _said_ something?

And then Mace scolds himself, because it was not Ben’s fault. They cannot hold him responsible for every act against them, simply because of what he _might_ have known about it. His friend was just a man. A man in extraordinary circumstances, but just a man, and he was doing the best he could.

Mace would not shame them both by allowing himself to be bitter that Ben Naasade could not solve all their problems, or by assigning him guilt he did not deserve.

“Fatalities?” Mace manages to ask.

“Not yet reported, sir.” The communications officer replies quietly, hunched with awkward responsibility. “But it looks like evacuation was already in progress when it happened, and rescue efforts are already underway.”

The harun kal Jedi Councilor nods vacantly, meeting Micah Giett’s blank brown stare with one of his own, neither of them really seeing each other, really thinking or feeling as their minds attempted to absorb the implications.

Mace crosses his arms, resisting the urge to comm Adi, to demand information, to see if she was alright. He was half a galaxy away. There was nothing he could do. And she would busy enough.

A blossom of light bursts in the distance, another fighter exploding. Theirs or the enemies, Mace does not know, as his gaze drags towards it. Anger hardens around his heart, thick and heavy as it seeps through his blood, flooding beneath his sin like fire. His anger is familiar to him, deep and tightly controlled, mastered long ago with the creation of the Vapaad.

He lets it flow through his body, lets it seep into the Force, and receives more of it in turn, rooting himself in the Light and letting darker currents wash over him, both distancing himself from the moment, and sharpening every detail of it. Master Giett takes a polite step away.

Mace breathes, letting the initial sure pass, refusing to be overwhelmed by it, and studies the battlefield out the viewport once more.

“Depa.” He presses his comm, moving to the forefront of the command deck.

“ _Yes, Master_?” The knight replies instantly, no doubt having felt the change in the Force.

“Stand by for deployment.” He commands simply. He turns. “Captain Tahan.” He nods at the purple-haired captain of the 117th Sky Defense, and possibilities swirl around them, all of them, shatterpoints bleeding through, echoes of _could-be_ making the _now_ seem slow and meager.

“Master Windu.” The captain crossed her arms, sharp, weathered gaze meeting his head on. “You look like a man on a mission.” She remarks. “Is it the right one?” She questions, and wisely so.

Mace appreciates her responsibility. It would be so easy, to allow vendetta to cloud purpose, but Mace’s mind was clear. What had happened had happened. He let it go. What happened next – that had yet to be determined. He _would_ determine it.

He acted to preserve as many lives as possible, not destroy them.

“It is.” He replies calmly.

“Then let’s have it.” She barks, trusting the jedi master at his word.

Mace turns his eyes on the navigators, a brief flicker of assessment, and then back at the Captain, accepting within himself what he was about to suggest.

“We are making very little progress in getting through this fleet. The longer we are engaged, the less chance we have of success.” The Yinchorri had more ships, more personnel, and, with the Yinchorri homeworld firmly behind them, far more resources to supply their engagement. If the Judicial Fleet was forced into retreat, and the Yinchorri allowed to expand their efforts, this could result in a much wider war.

This was a risky moment in possibility. They would have to take some risks themselves.

“Agreed.” Captain Tahan replies flatly.

Mace considers the possibilities laid out before him, and trusts the Force.

“If we can get behind the main brigade, we have a higher probability of being able to disable the command vessel and force the fleet back.”

“Master _Jedi_.” Her tone hardens, wanting him to get out with it. She knows this already. They all know this already. They’ve tried, but the smaller vessels were to vulnerable alone on the other side, and had not met with success.

“Captain, I suggest we make the attempt with our cruiser.”

The pilot and his back-up both look at each other with flat denial.

“You suggest…” Her jaw works. “You suggest _hyper-skipping_ a _Judicial Cruiser_ behind the enemy fleet. Master Windu, failure would cost us the lives of every crewman aboard this vessel, and greatly diminish the survival rate of the rest of our fleet.”

“ _If_ it fails.” Mace agrees.

Captain Bitteren of the 8787’s Peacekeeper Forces hacks a gravelly snort. “I told you the Jedi weren’t _boring_.”

~*~

Jude Rozess wakes to darkness and dust, the buzzing of stressed machinery and her own gargling wheezing. Blood mats her uniform, mostly hers, and there is so much pain from her legs – what she can feel of them, at least – that she almost slips right back into unconsciousness with a ragged scream.

But she doesn’t allow herself that. She clenches her jaw and forces herself to breathe, throat throbbing with the ragged gashes across her chest – left there by heavy-handed Yinchorri claws – and lets her mind recede from her body, making pain and claustrophobic fear, and the knowledge that her legs were crushed under what was likely several thousand tonnes of temple rubble all fade away. Lets it become something she is aware of, rather than something she must feel.

She coughs, dust in her throat, and blinks into the darkness.

She hadn’t been winning that fight – oh, she’d started off well, but the bastards were wearing cortoisis armor, and when her lightstaff failed, her Mystral-style hand-claws and needles weren’t quite so effective against opponents twice her height for times her mass. Damned if she didn’t give it one hell of a go though.

And, she supposes, the joke was ultimately on them. When the creche came down, she survived. They didn’t.

She’s not sure how long that victory is going to last, though.

She’s able to move her hands, at least, though the left is all but useless, the muscle in her shoulder shredded through. But with her right she can feel out the space around her. It’s not much, this pocket of safety, and she doesn’t know how much air she might have.

She needs to drop herself into a trance.

But it’s a hell of a thing – a hell of thing, to do it knowing she may never come out of it. Oh, every situation desperate enough to drop yourself in as deep as she needed to go meant you might not come out alive, meant you were already half dead and like to be full dead soon enough, but this…

If she stays awake, if she stays alert, she has _time_. Time just to…. _be_. But the moment she withdraws inside herself, that’s it. That might be all she ever gets.

“Ah hell, Jude.” She scolds herself, voice a breathy rasp even to her own ears. “You’ve done a good run.”

She’s hardly a young thing anymore. She’s had her fair share of experiences, good and bad and strange. She had easy years as a padawan, happy years. She served well as a Shadow. It took her to darker places than she’d known she could go and come back from. She’d healed from that, recovered wiser and more understanding of herself, more forgiving and more demanding, because she knew her limits. She’d taken to and absorbed her role as a Temple Guard well after that, the abnegation of self an entirely different sort of journey, but the close knit comradery of the guardsmen, the sanctity and reserve of the service – it had been everything that had seemed untouchable as a Shadow, when you were isolated, when you were in deep in the darkness and the danger and the absolute worst the galaxy had to offer. These last years have been good years though. Overall, she’s had a good life. She’s been a good Jedi, served well and with faith and hopefully, hopefully made the galaxy better for having her.

She does not regret her life.

But that does not stop her heart from wanting more of it.

“Death.” She whispers, calling on that deep inner reserve. “Yet the Force.”

Her heart pounds heavy and slow, shock creeping cold and clammy through her flesh. It doesn’t matter if her eyes are open or closed, she can’t see a damn thing.

 _Death_ , the Force replies in agreement, like a lyrical croon, like the brush of a caress over her brow. _Yet the Force_.

She feels suddenly, inexplicably, less alone.

 _But not yet, young lady_.

~*~

Adi Gallia cannot tell if she feels too heavy or too light, torn between exhaustion and exhilaration after channeling far more power in the Force than she was used to handling. More than a physical being, in all probability, _should_ be handling.

And still, still, she must deal with these petty, paltry disputes and appearances. Reassuring public interest that the situation was under control was no burden; shutting down speculation on culpable parties was aggravating but necessary; fielding accusations of incompetence, as if competency had any bearing on the fact that her home had just been _assaulted_ – Adi probably would have handled that with more grace, had she the chance to take a nice, long nap first.

The nasal, banal question simpering about cost and the prospect of patronage, snidely commenting on the apparent vulnerability of the Order, cast on its own…. Adi stares at some squinting junior official she suspects is either a representative of or employed by the Banking Clans, and manages, with more dignity than irritation, to reply; “The Temple is _insured_.”

That was a matter of law for any structure of significant mass on Coruscant, lest shoddy construction risk the livelihoods of every neighbor around and below them. If the Order need allocate all those insurance funds to those harmed by the collapse for their own repairs or loss of income, they would, regardless of their own reconstruction. The Jedi would endure. Not all were so fortunate as that.

Particularly with people out there like this, all but blatantly perpetuating predatory lending, ready to turn desperation into ruthless profit.

“Well-“ The simpering official sours, no doubt ready to imply something unflattering for having met with the durasteel wall that was Adi’s impatience, only to be cut off.

“Of course it is, and that will come as a relief to many, no doubt.” Bail Organa emerges, striding through the platform of journalists and senate envoys and the few other concerned or spitefully intrigued senators who bothered to come down in person. He smiles amicably at the annoying – and Adi should be more charitable, but she is _tired_ – individual, his ochre eyes as hard as stone. They offer a sickly smile in return, hunch up and make to disappear. “Master Gallia,” Senator Organa continues, spreading his hands and bowing his head in respect. “Alderaan offers our deepest sympathies to the Jedi Order for your losses today.”

Adi dips her head, feeling the genuine care he expresses as a balm in the Force.

“May I walk with you?” The senator offers, gesturing to escort Adi back to the frenetic bustle of her fellow Jedi, to the dismay of everyone else on the platform - including Knight Ichi-Tan Micoda, whose orange gaze met hers in a quiet request not to be left to face the horde alone.

Adi wavers. She looks back to the young Senator, whose presence is steady and patient and perfectly accepting of whatever decision she might make. He would have made a good jedi, she thinks.

“It _is_ about time for Knight Micoda and myself to rejoin the recovery efforts. We will keep he public apprised as necessary.” Adi states for the cameras and the hungry journalists, rescuing both herself and Knight Micoda, who makes short work of extracting himself and joining them as they step away.

Senator Organa, a good many inches taller than Adi, keeps an easy stride for his shorter companions and an easy silence until they are beyond the casual range of the holocams and reporters, and then simply brushes a finger over one of the pins on his stately grey cloak, which Adi imagines quite takes care of any other technological eavesdropping.

He looks at his jedi companions then, gaze both warmer and more somber. “Were there many losses?” He inquires quietly.

Adi swallows, pushing past the first instinct to rebel and refuse to offer up just how wounded the Jedi might be, to realize that hi compassion is utterly genuine and hides no other purpose behind its veneer. “A few dozen. Perhaps a little less than a hundred. We were…exceptionally lucky.” She replies, repaying sincerity with sincerity. “We have yet to be able to identify whom…. but we can feel when one of our own passes.”

Sympathy and relief light his eyes, and he nods. “These have been a harsh few years for the Jedi.” He remarks. Adi nods in weary agreement. “If your people would take harbor for tonight – or several nights, should you need - the Alderaan Embassy is open to you, as are the Embassies for Corellia, Chandrila, Shili and Naboo.”

“We may take up that offer.” Adi replies, grateful for it, but not ready yet to leap at accepting such. The Jedi were, at this moment, exceptionally vulnerable. And it occurs to her that the bombing may not be the only threat they’ll face.

Their steps slow, and the three of them pause, looking at the wounded silhouette of the Jedi Temple in the fading day. Adi feels a knot form in her throat, and it takes effort to loosen it.

“Do you know there has never been a Jedi Temple on Alderaan?” Senator Organa remarks with soft deliberateness, eyes not leaving the broken towers, the rubble, the wounded. The light is fading, the blue sky suddenly darting with streaks of pink and red.

“The Order and Alderaan have always had a relationship of mutual respect.” Adi says, cautiously wondering where this train of thought was leading.

“Hm.” He nods, a quiet affirmation accompanied by a small little smile. “A _valued_ relationship of mutual respect.” He replies, gaze lingering on the destruction, nearly a fourth of the Temple in ruin before them. A harder core of sterner values rises closer to the surface of his emotions. “You see, it has long been held that Alderaan should not claim a Temple for our own when there were so many worlds which needed the Jedi more. It occurs to Queen Breha; to my wife and I,” he pauses, and Adi takes note of that transition, of the difference between speaking to Alderaan’s representative for the Galactic Republic, and speaking to the husband of Alderaan’s queen. “ that perhaps more than what the Jedi could offer should have been explored in that decision.”

More than what the Jedi could offer.

 _What the Jedi need_ , he means, in the kindest way possible.

He turns and looks at her then, resolution running deep. “Breha would have made the request sooner or later – at the very least in the hopes of enticing our jedi friends to visit more often –“ His smile takes on a teasing twist of light humor, before relaxing back into formality. “ - but circumstances being what they are;” He pauses for a breath, which allows Adi herself a moment to understand what is about to be offered. “I would like to put it forth that we would be honored if the Jedi Order would consider founding a temple on Alderaan.”

Adi swallows, gaze straying to the damage done to her home, her mind to the beating the Jedi have taken of late. She will not deny, that at times, she has felt that her people were very alone, in their endeavors. Some of that was deliberate; the attempt to extract themselves from a trap they felt was closing around them. The rest…

Today, the ground fell out beneath them, very literally and in very many other ways too. And here someone is, freely offering them a place to stand, and someone who would stand beside them.

“Given our long history of mutual respect, the Jedi would be honored, “ Adi replies, feeling every word deeply. “ to give your request its very due consideration.”

If her voice wavers, just briefly, no one present begrudges her for it.


	29. Chapter 29

Draboon was a small terrestrial body in the Draboon System of the Mandalorian Sector. Plant-life was a rich array of dark greens, purples, and black, the light spectrum hued more towards blue, some combination of the white suns spectrum and the gas layers in the atmosphere. The air had a slightly metallic-sweet taste, a little high on the oxygen content.

Rather than orbit the small white sun, Draboon and its star both orbited a much larger gas giant, which made rotations and seasons haphazard at best. While it supported some smaller forms of life, and was certainly habitable enough for colonies – if they had outside support during what could be years-long winters – Draboons greatest claim to fame was that it proved a rich source of lapis, a vibrant blue gemstone with some conductive properties. As such, most of the small planetoid was currently under claim by the Mining Guilds.

Not, Satine thinks, that they had to worry about that at the moment. They had crashed – or, as Obi-Wan put it, _poorly landed_ – far from any active mining sites.

Around them spanned fields of tall, tussocked grass and brush, gleaming with some form of fireflies and the occasional red-gold flash of small, reflective eyes. Stars glittered out of a deep purple sky, and shadows of whispy clouds scrolled across the horizon.

It was…beautiful.

Satine takes a breath, and another, shudders, and sinks to her knees, heedless of the damp ground. She had walked away from the others, just needing, just needing a _moment_. To _breathe_.

 _I can’t be here. I can’t do this. We cannot – we cannot_ -

Tears prick her eyes and she covers her face with her hands, scrubbing them back, willing them away, but it hurts. It bites into her chest and claws at her lungs and she _can’t_ breathe. She gasps, and sobs, and bites her fist.

It wasn’t just about crashing, certain she was going to die in a blaze of fire and crumpled metal; It wasn’t being shot at, hot plasma searing past her face, close enough to blind her, being carted off like some doll, not even given the chance to defend herself; it wasn’t holding the hand of someone terrified and uncertain and willing to have faith while pretending she wasn’t two of those things and did possess the third; it wasn’t the lying, the sneaking around; it wasn’t standing in front of all of Mandalore and watching her cousins be murdered and unable to scream or grieve for it; it wasn’t having had to look the man who killed them in the eye, the man who assured her fathers death, in the eye, know he was hunting her too, and not flinch; it wasn’t breaking from the loyalty of mentors and advisors who had supported her for years; it wasn’t wanting to hug her sister and scream at her and not being capable of doing either; it wasn’t trying to stand where her father stood, and feeling inadequate in even the memory of his shadow; it wasn’t watching him _die_ -

It was _all_ of it. It was _all of it_ , and more.

It was pouring over his notes and his paperwork and his legacy, trying to parse out his thoughts and his reasons when he used that awful short-hand, and having no one to turn to who would _know_. It was that look in Fett’s eyes, all sorry and worried and promising vengeance, and his awkward half-attempt to reach out which failed almost as soon as it began, after her father’s barren funeral. It was Bo-Katan leaving, forgetting what she’d promised, and coming back with someone elses name. Walking away from their father, and walking away from her too. It was refusing to speak to her father for _months_ after he’d sent her to Coruscant. It was standing in a plaza, watching her people try to _murder_ each other in the streets. It was painting gold flowers on raw beskar, and breaking her own heart on a hope and a dare of trying to guide her people free of the blood and ash and waste they were mired in, that they were choking on and drowning in. It was breaking promises she’d made to herself, for the sake of her people, of her duty to them. It was the anger that was eating her alive, and the nightmares, and the quiet, painful absences in her life.

And it was guilt, over wanting to be selfish, over wishing to run away from all of it.

As if that would make her _happy_. As if that would absolve her of the love she held for her people, and make the pain go away.

It was _hating_ her father, for leaving her with this.

And hating herself, for feeling that way.

Satine can’t stop the spill of hot tears, or the gasping, shaky sobs.

A swish in the grasses, steps coming around from the other side of the ship, where the rest of them were working on assessment for repairs and starting a fire and turning ration packets into something edible.

“Satine, are you going to – oh. _Hey_.” Obi-Wan’s voice turns soft, and oh so gentle and kind, and it makes her cry harder, and then he’s kneeling beside her in the damp grass. A gentle touch lands on her shoulders, and then Satine is crying into his neck, and he’s close, and real, and bleeding warmth into her.

She appreciates the fact that he doesn’t stupidly ask her what’s wrong.

“I can’t- I can’t-“ She grinds her teeth, trying to regain control, trying to push it all back. She hates this, this utter helplessness. “I can’t d-do _this_.”

He lets out a soft breath over her ear, and shifts, and next thing she knows, he’s picking her up out of the wet, cold grass and carrying her around, and had she any effort left to fight, she would, because she can’t bear the others seeing her like this; not resolute, unfaltering Sha’me Betoya, not frightened, uncertain Vesh-

They don’t see her. It seems Satine barely really blinks, and they’re inside the ship, which is still listed to one side, the floor tilted. It seems to matter less, when he slumps them both back onto a bunk. The closed quarters make her hitching, involuntary gasps seem all the more harsh, and her eyes burn for effort. She wipes at them, and he catches her hand.

“ _Vaii cuy’vi’cuy_.” He murmurs. _We are where we are_. A Mando’a phrase that meant that statement more than physically. “We’re not going anywhere anytime soon, either. It’s okay.”

That soft exhalation, those last two words, the warmth, the security of being held – it’s not that she gives in. It’s that she doesn’t _want_ to fight it. She gets tired, so _tired_ , of constantly trying to fight it.

With his thumb brushing small, soothing motions between her shoulder-blades and no point in pretense between them, Satine buries her face against the ridge of his chestplate, against his silks and his neck and lets herself cry.

Obi-Wan tips his head back against the bulkhead, and holds her together so she can fall apart.

~*~

Satine shifts into awareness feeling hungry and wrung out and a hundred times lighter. She blinks blearily, eyes puffy and gritty from tears. It’s impossible to tell time in the dim-lit cabin, whether it is light or dark outside, but the strain lifted from her thoughts and the heavy bonelessness of her muscles tells her she’s finally gotten a few good hours rest.

She is, however, swelteringly warm. Well, part of her is, but her back is cool, save for the span of her waist-

Abruptly, she remembers her uncomfortable pillow is a person, and that person is Obi-Wan Kenobi. And she is not so much leaning against him as she is plastered to his lap and clinging to his chest.

And they are alone. Together. In a closed cabin. And have been.

For _hours_.

Heat crawls up her face in a rosy flush, embarrassment making her skin prickle and her heart pick up speed, her mind turning over and sticking on what her peers at the Academy would say, on what _Sha’me_ would say, after the two of them disappeared alone together for hours…

A warm flutter of something else teases through her, _her_ thoughts straying to what they could have been doing, and Satine feels her face flush even redder.

Satine tries to discreetly extract herself, or, well ,attempt to figure out how to do so, because she doubts he sleeps heavy enough to not notice her trying to slip out of the arm he has around her waist-

The arm around her waist loosens, and a shiver crawls up her back at the loss of skin-heat.

Satine steels herself and looks up.

His hair is a touselled mess, there’s a smear of grease or carbon on his brow, and his eyes gleam sharply, a cutting blue-grey just touched with green. His gaze dances over her flushed cheeks, and he offers her an utterly cheeky smirk.

Satine hits him on the chest, which does very little considering his armor, and looks away to compose a glare, trying to will the color out of her cheeks. “Don’t say a word.” She warns.

He shifts a little, scooting back against the wall, and Satine is…pointedly aware of how very far apart they are _not_ , of the heat coiled between them still, and her skin tingles with a thrilling little spark of attraction. His smirk gets a little wider, a little more smug, full of charm and certainty.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi, you are _incorrigible_.” Satine grumbles, crossing her arms. It’s a struggle, to hold his gaze and her own mock temper, when he is looking at her like _that_.

She sucks in a breath when his fingertips ghost at the edge of her cheek and the shell of her ear, tucking a loose lock of silver-blonde hair back from her face. That touch traces down the fine edge of her jaw, and not once do their gazes waver, locked in captivation with each other. Satine barely notices that she all but leans into the chaste brush of her touch, not until he’s cupping her jaw.

“Satine Kryze,” He murmurs, voice raspy and warm and full of liquid promise. “ you are _beautiful_.” He tells her, and the look in his eyes says he means it in every way possible. His gaze, storm-like and exhilarating, finally breaks from hers, dropping to her lips and then back up, burning with a jedi’s focused intent.

Her heart pounds.

The next shiver across her skin is one of pure expectation; a warring of impatient desire and the notion that this was terrible timing for what was for so many reasons a terrible idea-

His thumb brushes her lower lip like a brand, the corner of his mouth quirking up with terribly charming confidence. Her entire awareness wakes up, sparkling energy skittering through her from one simple, perfect sensation.

Satine grabs his collar, fingers digging in to the silk, responsibility challenged by desire, not yet sure if she should push him away or-

He pulls her in, his every touch heat on consumptive heat, and his lips claim hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: This chapter is for my buir, who really wanted this Obitine scene. Hope I did it justice.


	30. Chapter 30

Death Watch meets them on the ground shortly before the sky opens up and the rain just starts _hammering_ down. It sluices off armor, sizzles in blasterfire, glitters and hazes in visual displays. Grass and mud churn and turn slick and sloppy under their feet, and puddles prove a hell of a hazard all on their own; some were a mere skin of standing water, little deeper than a boot tread – others hiding pits as deep as Jango’s waist, craters from mortar rounds from their last little skirmish.

Worse than that – because it had to get worse, apparently – were the mud-serpents that had taken to burrowing in the deeper pools, sharp beaked slimy bastards that could take a chunk of flesh off clean with one nasty snap – right through the bone too, if the snake were big enough. Beskar would protect you, but if they caught you in a soft spot….

Jango had almost entirely forgotten about those local hazards, early warnings from his childhood blurred by time and distance.

Least-ways until a little one had tried to burrow its way into his boot.

Jango slips again, cursing as he drops to a knee to keep himself from falling on his ass, catches a visual as two blaster bolts blow over his head, and fires back. He thinks he makes his mark, that one of them falls, but discerning that with his depth perception and clarity as shitty as they were at the moment is difficult. He doesn’t take a return round to the face, so he’ll call it good enough.

Craters and barricades and rain – the ground assault was one shifting morass, no one making much ground for all that they were both taking losses, and it was pissing Jango off. Air support was strapped as it was after days of dogged defense, and _Kyr’stad_ just kept coming, swapping out fresh men and fresh machines. They must have a resupply post nearby, but fuck if the _Haat Mando’ade_ had pinpointed it yet.

That, and they may be getting local help. It wouldn’t be anything, for a vessel of two at a time to find shelter and assistance on some scattered homesteads and then rally back up. Concord Dawn wasn’t like Kalevala or Krownest, with their rigid loyalties and territories and overarching Houses. Concord Dawn was a make-do world, a hodgepodge of transients and former transients from every clan and branch of creed. It was also a _large_ world, and the planetary government wasn’t so much an administration as a loose coalition held together by more unspoken agreements than codified ones. The Journeyman Protectors were the only real official agency here, and they had – genuinely apologetically – informed the _Mand’alor_ that they were staying out of the fight between _Kyr’stad_ and the _Haat Mando’ade_. The Protectorate had loyalties on both sides, and their duty to Concord Dawn came first. They were responsible for keeping the peace among the settlements here, and defending the outlying homesteads from piracy, and, in this case, from allowing their world to become collateral damage. Jango had accepted that with grudging respect, and when the Protectorate did join the fight, pushing both _Kyr’stad_ and the _Haat Mando’ade_ and their dogfight away from a few bystander homesteads, he pulled back and complied. _Kyr’stad_ had been a little more stubborn about it, but they scrambled once Jango turned the battle pattern, more than willing to use the Protectorate’s push as one side of a pincher movement if given the chance.

He understood well enough their situation – Mandalore had enough dead and dying worlds from their constant, uncompromising warfare. Kalevala was unhospitable outside the domes, Concordia was a generation away from any kind of environmental stability, and even Mandalore itself had great swathes of barren wasteland, struggling to recover and clinging to the slim hope it might actually have a chance to.

Sometimes, however, he curses them, and himself, and wants to demand their support and their fighting force for the cause. He has the right. He wants this fight _over_. He wants _Kyr’stad_ dead and dust.

As a younger man, he would have, and damn the cost and the consequences and what anybody else would have to say about it.

Adonai wouldn’t have said a damn thing. He’d have clenched his jaw and followed Jango’s lead and then he’d have taken a walk through the aftermath, and looked at whatever they had wrought, and then he’d take a walk through their victory, and what they had won for what they paid for it, and judged himself on that. And Jango would judge himself by the weight of Adonai’s gaze afterwards.

There would be no apologies. No regrets. Just an acknowledgement, perhaps a little more yield come the next time – or a little less.

But he doesn’t have Adonai Kryze standing beside him anymore.

Instead he has a _vod_ whose faith in the _Mand’alor_ feels more like a demand than an offer, and whose friendship sometimes feels more like repentance and forgiveness for the both of them than anything so simple as solidarity; His _vod’s_ _verd’ibir_ – his own too, if he’s willing to admit it – whose faith has nothing to do at all with how well he holds the title _Mand’alor_ , and everything to do with who he shows himself to be as a man, a painfully open-hearted and _just_ young man who is as willing to argue with him as agree with him; Adonai’s daughter, who has very little faith in him at all and whose vision for Mandalore’s future is quickly outstripping his own, just as like to sweep him up as it was to cast him aside if he had any sense of the girl at all; and a daughter of his own, who will have to live with the legacy he leaves for her, with the worlds that are built or broken around him and in his wake.

It’s not so simple, anymore, the weight of the judgement in the eyes of the people he trusts.

It would be easier, he thinks, without them. Easier on his own, where the only one who could judge him was himself, and it would be so damn easy to never have to look himself in the eye.

 _Easier_ , he thinks, as a brown-gloved hand grabs the underside of his arm and helps haul him to his feet, shimmering copper lightsaber deflecting a spray of bolts with dogged accuracy – and Jango doesn’t fail to notice that those bolts are very much returned to sender, sometimes just shy of lethally, a few inches difference between disabling and deadly. _Not better_.

Jango steps in behind the Mandalorian jedi, using his profile as a shield as they make their way forward, Jango using the trace-back of _kyr’stad’s_ blasterfire as a targeting method while Ben ensures neither of them gets shot.

“Not too far.” Jango warns, as they get ahead of their _verde_ , in danger of creating a gap in the defenses behind them.

Ben nods, pauses, and reaches back with one palm. Jango glances down, eyes the barricades and shifting motion ahead of them, and snaps a grenade off his belt, dropping it in the red-heads hand. He lobs it, the arc higher than any natural throw ought be, for a human, and the explosion certainly makes some noise and color.

And clearly pisses _Kyr’stad_ off. They fire back with a vengeance, covering for their wounded, and the _Haat Mando’ade_ return the favor, some of them a little too close to Jango’s backside for comfort. A similar hike in crossfire colors the sky overhead, and someone sheds an entire belt of poppers, which rain down on the field with bright bursts of light and concussion, disorienting both sides. Jango and Ben separate on instinct, the jedi trying to make sure the deadly hail didn’t harm their own side too badly, Jango taking advantage of the blunder to see who he could pick off, ducking behind a broken barricade for cover himself. He grimaces, the angles of his new location less than ideal. He’s got a good view on either side, but they could come at him straight down the middle and he wouldn’t know.

A dart of movement catches his gaze, low and fast and continuous, and Jango adjusts the viewer of his helmet display, trying to figure out-

A blur of motion bolts right through the guard of a burning copper blade, and knocks the jedi down, heavy maw savaging a shoulder and dragging the man. A strill – a fucking strill, spiny-maned canines with a nasty temper. Hard to tame and hard to kill.

Jango tries to aim on instinct, but he already knows it would be a bad shot – he’s more likely to hit his jedi than not – and he’s about to have his own problem. Another one of the dark-coated bastards is after his jedi, but he’s got two more coming at _him_ real fast.

Trained trackers, then, he realizes. _Just for us two in particular_ , he thinks with grim amusement. _Aren’t we special_.

He holsters his blasert and just about has the darksaber in hand when he realizes he’s lost one of them, only a heartbeat before a weight comes down over the top of the barricade with a snarl of teeth. It hits him hard, and Jango grabs on and rolls as they slam into the round, fighting for control and dominence, mud spattering his helmet, making every attempt at pinning the vicious animal an effort in slick futility.

 _Fuck-fuck-fuck_ -

The second latches on to his ankle, teeth sinking through his boot and the gaps in his beskar, and tearing into his leg before jerking its head forcefully enough to snap bone. Jango kicks hard with his free leg, finds the igniter on the fucking darksaber in his hand, and guts the beast trying to rip its teeth through his helmet before hacking at the one on his leg – but that bastard is wily, and it dances back before the blade takes its head off.

Jango snarls, heaving himself to his feet, and the strill snarls back, a spiteful intelligence in its reflective eyes.

A heavy band encircles its throat, and Jango notices a dull red glow half-hidden by fur and mud-spatter. A tracking beacon, he judges. The torn muscles in his leg burn with a vengeance, pain screaming at him not to stand on it. Jango holds the darksaber out on front of himself with two hands, boots planted as firmly as he can manage – and he can fucking well manage.

It half-circles him, growling low, seeking an opening, an opportunity, a weakness.

Jango lunges first, a fast feint, and the beast skitters back, and then slinks in, hackles raised in thread, spiny mane bristling to its full bulk. They glare each other down. Jango leg trembles, and the mongrel takes one testing step closer, snapping its jaws.

Bad move.

Jango lunges, before it can, and catches the strill down its muzzle, neck, and shoulder as it retreats giving a yelp of pain and then staggering, shaking its head blindly, before bolting. Well trained or not, an animal will only take so much. It was a clever bastard though – Jango will give it that. He would, however, like to shoot its handler.

 _Vengeance later_ , he snaps at himself, cursing the wound he’s taken as he leans heavily on the barricade and scans the field for Ben – and spots his lightsaber first, sticking out of the mud, as useless as a fucking stick, for all the good it did not in the jedi’s hand.

Jango swears at himself, at the jedi, at the strill and the _Kyr’stad_ and the rain for good measure, clenches his jaw, and moves.

His lope across the mud is less than steady, and he doesn’t have a jedi’s knack for deflecting blaster fire, but he does have the good instinct for when to fucking duck, and he makes it to the lightsaber, snatching it up.

Ben is not twenty paces away, on his knees in a puddle, one arm hanging badly at his side, the other upheld in front of him, as if to ward off the two strill snarling in front of him, bobbing up and down, gazes fixed on target, ears flicking.

Jango can practically see the jedi’s attention shift between the two, each time one attempts to skirt closer. He’s honestly surprised they aren’t already tearing into him – wounded prey and all.

But the jedi closes a fist, and the two strill hunker low, whining.

Jango’s foot slips in a hole and he lands on one knee with a hoarse, bitten down cry. The two strill snap their attention over, and Ben lurches. “ _No_.” He commands, and Jango can feel that command in his bones.

The two tracking hounds hunker and whine. “ _Run_.” The jedi commands sharply, and the animals bolt.

Jango feels the back of his neck prickle, and old, instinctive distrust of jedi tricks, and growls at himself for it, before doggedly getting back to his feet and making a good pace the rest of the damn way.

“Leg?” Ben grunts at him, when Jango gives him a push to his feet and a good shove towards the nearest bit of cover – though the _Haat Mando’ade_ are doing a god job of laying coverfire around them.

“Not broken.” Jango grunts back. “Arm?”

“Dislocated.” Ben replies tersly, leaning wearily into the barricade as soon as they’re clear. Jango snorts, takes as much weight off his bum leg as is reasonable, and offers a hand.

They set his dislocated shoulder with little fuss – a grinding, gritty suck-pop and some colorful swearing – and Jango shoves the copper-bladed lightsaber back in Ben’s hand.

Ben, still reeling and trying to do that Jedi thing where they just breathe away pain, nods tightly and offers a quick, half-absent; “Thank you, Commander.”

 _Oh the fuck with that_ , Jango thinks blackly, hating with every fiber of his being that he stands in the shadow of a ghost.

Jango grabs his _vod_ by the collar and yanks their buckets together, thinking he was damn well going to knock some fucking sense into the other man. “I am _not_ Cody and I _will_ hit you.”

Rain pours over their heads for a tense, mincing pause.

“…Jango.” Ben acknowledges awkwardly.

“Are you _here_?” Jango demands. He doesn’t begrudge the other man his scars and everything that came with them, but he can’t just ignore them either. Just their own to lives on the line, and Jango wouldn’t care, but he can’t have the jedi slipping up, forgetting who was who and where they are or what the mission was with the _Haat Mando’ade_ following their lead.

The jedi puffs out a breathy almost-laugh. “Right here with you, _Mand’alor_ , having a lovely fucking day.”

Jango snorts a releases the other man. “Sometimes you really fucking piss me off.” He mutters.

“Oh, the feeling is mutual.” Ben claps him on the shoulder.

Jango accepts that with a nod, and, on the same page, the two of them turn their focus back on the battlefield, and the picture painted across it as it spanned out around them.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence depicted in battle.

Ben grinds his teeth, trying to get a grasp on the sense of wrongness he feels in the Force, the spike of dread-threat-warning-now that scratches at the edges of his senses, but no amount of focusing makes it any clearer. Whatever it was, it was distant, and he needed to focus on the here and now.

 _Kyr’stad_ had breached the barricades, scanners putting them in ill-mapped half-collapsed subterranean bunkers, some corridors little more than trenches, others pitch-black tunnels full of mud and detris and wildlife.

Ben was trying to sense them out, he and Fett and four other mandos one of five units in this sector. Even _Kyr’stad_ , he can feel, is getting tired, the siege dragging, the ground assault pushing into it’s third -fourth? Third? Day. At this point he and Jango are running on naps, stims and meditation, never out of the fight for more than a few hours. _Kyr'stad_ has them for numbers on this one, and its beginning to really tell in the energy of the _verde_.

Something drastic has to happen.

He has a bad feeling – one of an innumerous many – that its about to.

There is a startled, gut-punched gasp, and Ben feels the present danger too late - distracted by distant warnings. One of his unit goes down, a blade punched right through him, just under the bottom edge of his chest plate.

The blade is yanked out, and the man falls, wheezing wetly in painful gasps, and Ben’s first instinct is to drop to a knee, to try and help, but he can’t do that. The best he can do is quiet the mandos fear, quiet his pain, and push him into unconsciousness.

The blade that fell him crackles in the dark, and Ben’s helmet feed flickers between night-optics and color, and his mind struggles to comprehend why he is seeing what he is seeing, before it clicks.

“The _fuck_.” Another team-mate swears, and Ben agrees wholeheartedly, whereas Fett just steps forward with a rising tide of dark fury. The quarters are close, and his thermal feed blips, sussing out four or five bodies there in the dark before tripping back over to night-optics.

The blade is metal, painted black, and crackling with overpowered electrified discharge – a mockery of the darksaber, with a white laser edge.

Ben hears a scuff – real or imagined – and turns, finding four or five more creeping through the dark behind them, each one armed with those damned blades.

“Well, “ he mutters. “I suppose someone wanted to make a statement.”

“Jango Fett.” A voice calls – female, harsh and brusque. “ On behalf of Tor Vizla, and for the sake of Mandalore’s honor, we invite you to come with us.”

“I don’t think so.” Ben mutters, stepping in to guard Fett’s rear, careful not to tread upon their fallen comrade, his life still slipping away. The rest of the unit shifts, but there is an unease there too – this was a direct challenge against the _Mand’alor_. It was up to Fett to decide how they ought to handle it.

“Tch. There it is.” Someone mutters out of the dark. “ Calling himself the _Mand’alor_ – our _great_ leader - while he hides behind a fucking _jetii_.”

Ben can feel Jango wrestling with his anger, can feel him weighing their odds; surrounded on both sides, the five of them left standing against ten or twenty fresh and well supplied commandoes.

“Are you trying to imply I’m a coward, _kyrstadii_?” The _Mand’alor_ eventually drawls out, voice a smooth roll despite the tension radiating out of his bones.

“I ain’t the one who said it.” The anonymous speaker snorts.

Jango laughs, a sharp, derisive bark of a sound that echoes down the tunnel. It unsettles him, so Ben rather imagines it unsettles everyone else too. “So that’s cowardice, is it? Fighting side by side with a man I’ve shed blood with? With a man who stepped up to pay the debt his people owe mine? Fighting down here in the dark and the fucking mud with my _vod_ and _verde_? That’s cowardice?” He chuckles, each one a crackle of violent promise. “ _Kyrstadiise_ , if that is what you call cowardice, what the fuck do you brand Vizla? At least I’m _here_ in this fight, at least when my people bleed, I am right there beside them, not off _taunting grieving girls_. He wants to challenge me? Then he can come for me himself.”

“Tor Vizla made the offer, Fett. You can’t say he didn’t give you that much respect, despite the fact that you _abandoned_ that title once, and your people with it. If this is how you want to go, _I_ will oblige you.” The woman speaks again, voice low with scorn, and Ben will admit – their situation does not look good.

But they are forgetting something.

Ben clicks his comm, a short burst of small tones, a simple command to the three mandos with them not carrying a saber.

 _Down_.

They hesitate, and then they obey, pushing as close to the sides of the tunnel as they can, dropping to a knee – blasters still raised, but well prepared to _duck_.

He shifts his stance, just enough that his shoulders scrape Fett’s jetpack, that he knows the ground beneath him is clear.

The air is thick with anticipation, with threat and uncertainty and grim determination.

He can feel Fett taking the darksaber in hand, the undercurrent of focused power that crackles through the Force even before the blade is lit – crystals attuned to the wielder of the weapon. Jango wouldn’t understand what Ben means to say it, but the darksaber is pleased at being connected to Jango Fett.

Ben’s mouth turns into a hard, firm line inside his helmet, the look in his eyes sharp-edged and expectant. Back to back in the pitch darkness, the two of them are subconscious reflections of each other.

“Oblige me.” The _Mand’alor_ drawls, and ignites the darksaber.

They brought too many blades down in the narrow confines of the tunnels – no more than two can approach from either side at a time, and Ben lunges into the two that come at him, while his companions do the best thing they can do – stay out of the way and fire a shot if the angle is clean.

A storm flashes through shadow, their blades crackling when his saber meets them, the laser edge holding back his lightsaber, but not the heat of it. Black-painted metal, held too close for too long as they jockey for dominance on sheer strength, glows red-hot. Ben grits his teeth, and electric discharge arcs off the mocking blades, snapping and searing at his hands and his armor. Fett, grunting and swearing behind him, is having the same issue.

Ben’s recently dislocated shoulder burns, and he shunts his block forward, twisting in the narrow space with two blades coming down. It’s a trick not to get pinned against the wall, but he moves quickly – if not wisely. He ducks and lunges, and finds himself in the middle of four blades, instead of two, separated from Jango.

“ _Shabuir di’kut_!” Jango cusses him out, snarls when one of the blades screeches off his shoulder, and throws a punch with the darksaber in hand, melting a line into the bucket of the wielder of that blade, who cries and falls back, molten _beskar_ suddenly sluicing down their face.

Ben growls low in his throat, catching a blade just before it catches his neck, lets his weight fall back into the wall and throws out a kick – and gets a burning line of agony across the underside of his ribcage for leaving his guard open. He shoves with the Force, bluntly and carelessly and they slam against the wall before bouncing back up as he staggers.

Pain-shock comes in waves of heat-cold, a terribly similar agony to the time Krell ran him through, and Ben struggles to orient himself around the excruciatingly vivid sensation.

Three blaster-bolts zing past his face, and one of the blade-wielding _kyr’stad_ mandos topples back in the dark. Noise echoes and rattles around him, motion and intent swimming and swirling murkily, his pulse speeding and crashing.

He barely gets his next block up in time, his own lightsaber practically blinding his display, his movements guided on nothing but trust in the Force that his blade is where it needs to be.

A life snuffs out, slips off under their feet like nothing, and Ben flinches.

A blade skitters off his helmet, and he hears three sharp lurching cries, bursting with intent toward’s Jango, whose bad leg falters, two blades closing in on him-

Ben shoves off the wall, twirls his blade, and drives sharply forward, and two more lives snuff out, lightsaber cutting clean through their armor and their bodies and leaving their pieces behind on the ground. The next one gasps, and Ben grab their blade with a gloved hand and the Force, wrenches it aside, and pours violet-hued copper right through their chest.

A sharp sudden thrill of warning, and Ben turns and throws his blade. “ _Vod_!” He snaps, a blind toss and a blind catch, and Jango gets it up just in time. The black-painted blade sinks into the meat above his collarbone, carving through his armor harness, but not through his throat, protected between brilliant copper and white-edged eclipse.

Jango snarls out pain and anger, twisting sharply and launching to his feet, wielding the darksaber in one hand, and the burning lightsaber in the other. He’s still one man against three, with another two waiting in the wings to take him down, but he’s not bad at _jar’kai_ for an amateur, having trained Bo-Katan in dual short staves.

The _Mand’alor_ also fights utterly without a Jedi’s reserve, more than willing to hack through his opponents, scoring the walls and floor around them, the sears trailing lines of red which slowly fade, leaving a frightful, glowering glow around them moment by moment.

One cross-swing takes off head and bucket in a clean swipe, body collapsing to be replaced by an increasingly more desperate opponent.

Ben, assured Jango would live another moment, is drawn back into his own fight by a rather unexpected tackle from behind, taking him to the floor where they make every effort to fillet his spine. The pain in his abdomen whites out his vision, visceral and very present, and his shoulder buckles under trying to push up against that much furious weight.

He’s rescued by a full-tilt charge from one of his own _verde_ , plowing right into the body over top of him and throwing them both off him. Ben rolls, panting, and staggers to his feet as a quickly palmed blaster ends the matter decisively. He only gets one shuffled step towards Jango before he’s tapped on the arm and then pushed against the wall by a firm hand on his chest-plate.

“We’ve had enough crazy out of you for one fight, _jetii_.” He’s told. “Settle your ass down.”

Ben grunts out a complaint, but sags against the wall in compliance.

As it turns out, Jango doesn’t need any help.

When the Mand'alor is finished, the five of them remaining stand in the blood soaked dark, lit by the two sabers and the gleaming reflections off armor, bodies and body parts around them, and take a moment to calm their pulses.

Jango breathes raggedly, chest heaving with effort, and then he marches doggedly back to Ben with the stiff-legged gait of the exhaustedly enduring. He disengages the lightsaber with a little more thought, and then passes the hilt back to Ben. “This belongs to you.” He huffs out.

Ben offers him a ragged smile, even if he can’t see it. “It’s safe in your hands.” He replies gamely.

Jango grunts and his grip tightens, pointing the saber at Ben with warning. “No _jetii_ banthashite.”

Ben huffs painfully, a weak laugh. “Well if I say it outright, it’s just embarrassing.” He chuckles, and then wheezes into a moan, his side a fathomless depth of increasing pain.

“We lost Hal.” One of the Skirata’s reports bitterly, crouched next to the body. Jango turns, nodding wearily, and murmurs the name under his breath to remember it, another for the litany.

Ben takes back his saber with a grimace, and they make quick work of flesh-plast and pain patches to tide them over to real rest and recovery before moving on.

The battle was hardly won, for all that Vizla’s head hunters hadn’t got what they came for.


	32. Chapter 32

Ben is jostled awake during a sudden rise in volume, not actually aware of having intended to fall asleep, and it takes him a moment to register that Jango is also shaking himself awake, the pair having sat down side by side for just a moment of reprieve and fallen asleep shoulder to shoulder.

Their reprieve was apparently over, though Ben’s entire body and spirit protests, his thoughts and senses getting hazy with the exhaustion of what is now nearly a week of constant combat.

He’s up and moving on nothing but rote muscle memory alone, drinking a cup of bittery, watery caf that’s pressed into his hands and chewing through a vita-bar while taking in an excess of information being passed around.

Their air support is faltering, the next relief unit behind schedule, and _Kyr’stad_ is about to rain down from the sky.

Jango is cursing himself for getting them pinned down like this.

Ben blinks forcibly, certain that if he lets his eyes drift closed for too long he’ll be asleep on his feet, and accepts a stim tab before yanking his bucket over his head. He reels for a moment, eyes screwing up at the wrong, disorderly display, and the bucket gets yanked back off his head by Fett, who takes his bucket back and shoves Ben’s into his hands. He’d picked up the wrong one.

They eye each other for a moment, both of them bleary-eyed and aggressively determined.

“All hands on deck.” Ben mutters, and Fett nods sharply. They don their buckets, and join the throng of everyone else arming up and making their way outside. The shield generator are still operational, but they’re running low on fuel. _Kyr’stad_ will take this chance to overwhelm them before aid can come. They just have to hold them off long enough. Just long enough.

Ruefully, Ben wonders how many Separatists felt as he did now, as the GAR laid siege to captured cities. Ben was usually on the outside of these things.

Jango eyes the firefight going on overhead as they step outside, and the distant pounding din of a pitched ground battle on the north-west edge of the encampment. It’ll be a hike, but they’re needed, desperately.

Ben offers a hand, and Jango eyes it warily. Ben has considered that there were many instances where Shadow-Walking could have proved very useful so far, but it is still a new skill, not readily called to mind.

“Am I going to enjoy this?” Jango mutters, his distrust and fear of Force abilities still an instinct rooted deep in his mind.

“Probably not, but it will be expedient.” Ben replies, tiredly amused.

Jango offers him a dissatisfied grumble and clasps his arm, and Ben turns into the shadow of the building’s overhang, and whisks them both as close to the back edge of the battle-lines as he can manage. It’s a tricky thing, trying to predict where you’ll go, when it means guessing where the next shadow will be. He doesn’t always end up where he expects to end up, when he’s travelling farther than his own line of sight.

The nearest troop balks and swears at their sudden appearance, weapons jolting in their direction before recognizing the _Mand’alor_ and their friendly _jetii_.

“Hells, sir-“

Their greeting is cut off as an aerial gunner tears a strip right through the _Haat Mandoade_ , swooping low above them, and the _Kyr’stad_ press the advantage, a roar of noise and violent intent that surges through the Force, skittering alongside Ben’s bones, coloring his thoughts with aggression.

He grits his teeth, shakes his head, and, side by side with his _vod_ , launches into the fray.

~*~

The assault is brutal, dogged and vicious. They close the gap, and its damn near a melee on the ground, close-quarters and desperate. Grandes thrown blow through friend and foe alike, air-ships gunners mow through the crowd, only mostly hitting the right colors. Men and woman scream – in rage, in pain, barking orders, crying out for help.

Fire spits and smolders, shot down fighters spilling fuel on damp ground and dewy grass. Jango fires, and fires and fires, and keeps moving, pulling _verde_ up out of the muck when they’re down and kicking. Checking for life, calling for medics when he finds it. Swallowing bile and leaving them behind, when he doesn’t.

They’re not going to last, and he knows it, and his _verde_ know it too.

His breath is sharp and rough inside his bucket. He’s running on stim tabs, pain patches, adrenaline and anger, body less than cooperative for all the recent abuse it’s taken. His _manda jetii_ is fifteen yards aside, lightsaber a whirl of color as he defends a downed soldier long enough for the medics to get him out. The blaster-fire is thick from all sides, carelessness or blood-fury or shit aim, who knows.

Jango’s sensors mark an incoming rocket with just enough warning for him to pitch to the air and jump over it, though the blast knocks him off-kilter, jet-pack whining from poor maintenance. In the air is a pretty bad place to be – too easy a target for mass fire.

He lands poorly, bum ankle buckling even if he can barely feel the pain, and he ends up on his knees.

He catches sight of Ben staggering, armor sprayed in mud and char and gore – that rocket had hit pretty close, and it had hit bodies as well as ground.

The jedi wavers, and Jango feels his chest clench tight. An exhausted Jedi was one thing to take into battle – a concussed one, with Ben’s measure of TSR?

 _Stay with it, vod_. Jango wills formidably. _Stay with me_.

The brown bucket turns, amber visor locked on to him, as the deep, heavy whine of troop transports incoming rolls in overhead, heavy artillery fire pulverizing the ground in a fall of uncompromising destruction, headed their way.

He can see Ben’s chest heaving, see the grip on his lightsaber tighten and twist, the tilt of his head, scanning the mess around them, the futility breaking over them.

See the moment the _manda jetii_ makes a decision. Feels it, maybe, like a warning deep in his gut.

He prays to whatever gods might listen that the fucker doesn’t unleash that blazing green storm on a battlefield like this. It was one thing when the only two people he didn’t have to hit where Jango and Obi-Wan. In a morass of chaos like this? The collateral would be unimaginable.

And the fucker was useless afterwards, if the first time he did it was any indication.

He doesn’t, but what happens next is no easier to reconcile.

Jango keeps his head low, and two of his own _verde_ make their way up to him, hunkering beside him, ready to take his lead on the next push against the enemy, or hold the line here. The three of them get drawn into a crossfire that’s fast and harrowing and then over.

“Hoy fuck.” One of them utters, and Jango, cursing his limp and forcing his leg to cooperate, turns to see what the fuck their problem is now. He has _plenty_ of problems already.

It’s Ben, unleashing hell. Tearing mandos from hiding positions with the Force, flinging them aside with bone-breaking force or cutting through them like they were paper dolls. Some of them lose limbs and are left screaming for life; others, Ben cleaves clean at the neck, or across the chest. Its brutal and devastatingly efficient, every fucking nightmare of the _jetiise_ come to life.

 _Jedi aren’t meant to be soldiers_.

It wasn’t the plea he’d once thought, some lofty disdain. It was a warning.

Ben had explained it once – or tried, because Jango had been in a hell of a mood – why he didn’t just plow through their enemies like a one man killing machine, why he didn’t use the Force to tear them limb from limb, why he rarely used it against people at all. Why doing so was against the Jedi Code of Conduct, when they had the power to bring about a decisive end to conflicts if they were just willing to do what needed to be done, to get their hands a little dirty. _To use the Force as a weapon is_ abhorrent, Ben had explained, voice low and painfully stilted at the time. _But set aside my morality, set aside my philosophy, set aside even legality, for a moment_ ;

 _Easy enough_ , Jango had replied, arms crossed and eyes rolling. Ben had offered him a terribly bleak smile for that, one that made him distinctly unsettled.

 _To use the Force against people in such a manner_ , he murmured fiercely, tone clipped, _is dangerous. Not simply to me, to what using power like that does to my mind and my spirit and my connection to the Force, but to the Jedi as a whole_. His gaze had been fey and so cold it burned. _I could tear people apart._ He said simply, inflection almost dismissive. _I could tear_ worlds _apart. Tell me, vod; if I do such a thing, if a_ Jedi _does such a thing, would the galaxy ever trust us again?_

Jango did not have to admit it, but he knew the answer to that too well. He didn't have to admit it, didn't have to like it, but Ben's reasons were valid, and Jango didn't have to respect the rest of the Jedi, but he did respect Ben enough to acknowledge and to accept the precariousness of his position.

 _Kyr’stad_ senses the turning tide just as the _Haat Mando’ade_ do and target the jedi with renewed fervor. His lightsaber doesn’t so much defend him as it bats them aside dismissively, the air roiling around his figure, blaster-fire shedding around him as he tilts his bucket up to the sky and raises his free hand with deliberate purpose.

Fear takes a hard grip on Jango’s spine, his muscles freezing up. His ears don’t pop, but he and everyone else look up, feeling the weight of the sky pressing down.

The gunship wobbles, at first, hardly noticeable, the targeting shifting awry – and then the cannons rend, twist, and explode, and the gunship careens towards the earth, and Ben shifts his focus to the incoming troop transports.

They recognize their own loss of control, their sudden danger, and try to pull up, pull back, escape – too late.

Jango’s heart hammers, his grip on his blasters numb, helplessly riveted to watching this play out.

Metal pops and screeches, panels bending and crumpling as Ben curls his fingers, taking hold, draws his hand back, and wrenches down. _Kyr’stad_ forces shout and bolt for safe ground, trying to get out of the wat as the two transports are torn into the earth, heavy and wailing, plowing through men and dirt alike with a trail of fire, breaking to pieces more than exploding. It’s not pretty. It’s not a pretty way to go, either.

 _Kyr’stad’s_ ground forces break at the display, at the sheer uncompromising impossibility of it; the dread of the danger this new element represents, and the _Haat Mando’ade_ surge to the advantage, ferociously victorious and out for blood.

 _Kyr’stad_ fights desperately, almost derangedly, as their momentum turns sour. A few smarter bastards surrender. Some of them survive doing so. Some of them don’t.

Jango barely hears the intel come in that their air support is inbound, ahead of schedule.

For all intents and purposes, they’ve won this round.

Jango lets his _verde_ overtake his position as he turns his focus back on the jedi, whose saber is dipped low, arms loose and shaking at his sides, chest still heaving, legs locked tightly, keeping him on his feet as he surveys the damage he has just done.

The _Mand’alor_ lopes his way back to the Jedi with a wincing gait, muscles forced into cooperating by his sheer stubbornness. The wound over his collar burns with a vengeance, and his ankle is throbbing. His armor weighs heavy over his sweat-soaked body-suit.

It seems to take an hour to reach his friend. Standing there, however, toe to toe, he finds he has nothing to say. Instead he just reaches over and clasps a hand over his shoulder, feeling the fine tremor there and offering a simple, firm support.

The skies have grown quiet, and he can hear the joyous whooping hollers of his people, as transports – their own – come down, with fresh men and fresh supplies.

He’d turn to look, but Ben tips forward, their buckets clinking together, and Jango nearly staggers, getting more than his fair share of the weight.

The actual gesture occurs to him a moment later, and he snorts.

“ _Vod_ …” He huffs, hearing at least one nearby mando make a sound that should not come out of a grown mans mouth at witnessing what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a keldabe kiss. “Not exactly the time to tease.”

“M’not teasing.” Ben mutters. Jango lifts a brow the other man can’t see, amused but mostly exhaustedly accepting. “Not that I _wouldn’t_.” The red-head adds with a lilt of exhausted flirtation, and Jango feels his other brow shoot up to join the first at that, because, well, it’s not like he hasn’t noticed the other man in a very physical way, given the amount of shit the rest of the _Mando’ade_ gave him about it. “But you’re about the only thing keeping me standing right now.” The jedi huffs.

Jango scoffs a fatigued laugh. “Then both of us are about to fall on our asses.” His own legs were getting pretty damn shaky.

And that is about the time a loud, pointed cough demands his attention. He tips his head back, grabbing Ben’s other shoulder to brace him, and turns to see Rav Bralor with a cocked hip and crossed arms, and beyond her –

Bo-Katan, in all her glory, standing on the ramp of a transport.

The expression on her face rather speaks for itself.


	33. Chapter 33

“Well fuck, who’s gonna tell him?”

“This will be all over the barracks soon enough.”

“Somebodies got to tell him.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“Fuck no, I was there when the _jet’ade_ were told. That was _painful_ , and they aren’t – _Naasade_.”

“Tell who what?” Jango demands irritably, ducking into the transport serving as a mobile communications hub.

Finally taking a shower after a week of combat had been heavenly. He’d been disgustingly rank, and at that point, so fucking shaky he’d let Bo-Katan help him out of his armor, though she had departed abruptly when he started peeling out of his body suit, which was for the best.

She’d tossed a scathing “You two can help each other with that, I think.” over her shoulder at him and Ben on her way out too.

Ben had laughed, the asshole, and then given Jango a smug smirk before wincing and clutching at his side. Jango muttered that he well deserved it, but had still been kind enough to help him peel out of his bodysuit without falling over.

The hot sluice of water over his skin had been a momentary energizer, waking him up enough to get clean. 

If that had been heavenly, sleeping for eight hours straight after a medical check up had been bliss, and honestly Jango could sleep for another four quite easily. Ben was still out and Jango would give him a good fourteen before sending someone to kick his ass out of bed. The _Mand’alor_ wasn’t really educated on the mechanics of using the Force, but Ben had to be just as physically exhausted as Jango, with whatever using the Force did to him on top of that, so he was erring on the side of generosity.

Also the medics had been pretty snippy about the jedi’s medical profile, and the only reason they didn’t ground his ass to an infirmary cot was because there were plenty of wounded in far more dire condition.

“ _Mand’alor_.” Llats Ward, in his green and yellow armor, salutes promptly, issuing a glower to his colleague before offering up the datapad.

Jango takes it, scrubbing a hand over his freshly shaven face and rubbing at his eyes before really registering what he was looking at.

He stares at the feed for a solid minute, checks the time stamp – this was a couple days old already – and then flicks his dark gaze back up to Ward’s pinched brow.

“He’s dead to the world for five more hours. I don’t care what you have to do – no one tells him a fucking thing about this before I do.”

“Yes sir.” The comm officers chorus diligently.

Jango gives them all a hard look, turns on heel ,and stalks out of the transport.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks.

_Fuck._

_Fuck._

_Fuck_.

~*~

_Kriff._

_Kriff._

_Kriff._

_Kriff_ , Depa thinks, as a jarring shudder ripples through the ship, and the floor slides as the stabilizers start to fail. “ _Captain_.” She barks into her comm-link.

“ _My bad_.” Captain Dafa-Neu of the Besh-42 Tactical reports back sheepishly. “ _I had to improvise_.”

“ _Knight Billaba, we’re cut off_.” Master Giett reports in for himself and Padawan Vosa, and the ship gives another jolt, shields failing, taking one hell of a hammering from judicial. Depa peers at the nearest wall, sensing her master’s presence out there through the void of space, and wills him to _take it easy_. She’s still _on_ this karking ship!

She glances at Padawan Swan, but the girl is steady as stone, in spite of their rapidly devolving circumstances.

“We can still make it to the command deck.” Padawan Swan says evenly, gaze cool, presence a firm bulwark against the chaos and murk all around them in the Force.

“Captain Dafa-Neu, Master Giett, make your way to egress. Swan and I will take the command.” The ship was already listing, the shield generators and a good deal else destroyed by the Besh-42’s handiwork. The Yinchorri on board may put up a fight, but with their vessel crippled that was a fight Depa was certain the jedi could win.

“ _You may want to rethink that, Knight Billaba_.” Padawan Jeisel cut through to their comm channel, and Depa is only momentarily irritated that the girl was infringing on her mission. “ _That ship is caught in Yinchorr’s gravity. You’re getting pulled down.”_

Depa frowns at that, frustrated, and lets it go. They have greater concerns. “The fleet?”

“ _Breaking up. Good work disabling their communications_. _Also, that explosion made quite the impression._ ” Master Jinn reports, and Depa wonders in exasperation if anyone understands radio discretion at all. “ _We’re pushing them back to Yinchorr._ ”

She thinks quickly. Forcing them to retreat to the planet would work – momentarily. They’d have to hold them there, however, long enough to take out their _real_ command, and negotiate a surrender.

“Understood.” She replies. “Captain, Master Giett, can either of you make it to the transport?”

She receives both negatives, and a hard pounding starts up on the blast door keeping her and Bultar momentarily safe. She eyes it irritably, fingers tightening around her lightsaber, Force pooling to her skin in preparation.

“Find the nearest escape pods then and make it out of this.” She commands. “When we hit the ground, we’ll find each other. Stay safe, and Force be with you.”

Provided they all landed safely, they’d have to hope the crashing cruiser missed them, and more than likely fight their way through the Yinchorri until back-up arrived. It was all chances and risk, one after the other.

She looks at Bultar, who’s stance has shifted into a defensive guard, brilliant blue lightsaber prepared and waiting.

“You ready?”

Bultar glances aside, catching her eye. “I’m here, aren’t I?” the padawan replies simply, and Depa smiles.

“Yes, you are.” She agrees, engages her lightsaber, and faces the blast door.

She can hear metal grinding, bolts being sheared. They’ll have it open in another minute. She doesn’t give them another minute. She will engage them on her terms, not theirs.

Reaching out with the Force, she drives her will into durasteel and stressed welds, and _yanks_.

~*~

The Yinchorri, Komari Vosa knows well enough, are immune to the persuasive arts of the Force. They are not, she acknowledges with satisfaction, immune to the Force itself.

The senior padawan has all of her masters Makashi discipline and precise economy of motion, and a good deal more grace besides – the joyous benefit of youth.

The Yinchorri are massive, burly and ugly and near indomitable for ordinary foes. She takes pride in herself, that she is no mere ordinary foe. With the Force on her side, even titans are insignificant. All she has to do is hold them still, and her lightsaber can take care of the rest.

All she and Master Giett had been able to find where one-person escape pods, made for trapped officers more than mass-evac of crew. Durable as hell, but not offering much in the way of control or capability. The safety auto-pilot had engaged, bringing them down more or less without their input, and she’d had to crawl her way out of the crater, only to find Yinchorri patrols already searching the rocky plains and hills for them – well, for what they likely assumed were crew in need of rescue.

Upon actually encountering the jedi, clearly, their mission parameters had changed. They were no longer performing rescue, and there would be no prisoners.

Komari raises a hand, the air crackling with her power, and a mountain of flesh and bone is dragged to its knees. She drives her pale lightsaber through its wrinkle-fold neck, and feels it’s life gutter out. Slack, the body slumps to the ground with a heavy thud, and Komari stalks past it, doggedly tracking Master Giett’s presence.

He is certainly not having such an easy time of it. She can feel his wounded pain radiating in the Force, his persistent, mulish determination. For a Jedi Master, he fails to resemble anything blazing or glorious in the Force, just as unassuming and bland in effervescence as he was in person, his greatest achievement one of simple constancy.

She can feel the moment he senses her, coming for him. Her sense of him rallies, solidifies, bolstering his strength rather than carefully measuring its expense, now that he knows he is not alone.

Komari picks her way across the rocky ground, around the edge of one scrub-laden slope, and then another, listening to the echoes – scrabbling pebbles underfoot, the vibrato thrum of a lightsaber, the roaring battle-cries of the Yinchorri, the crackle of fire – from his pod or from a downed patrol ship, she can’t tell.

She finds them in a dry riverbed – a shallow, wide ravine winding through the plains. She stands on the ridge a moment. Giett has done better for himself than she thought – four Yinchorri lay dead around him, but two more remain towering over him, and he is deeply wounded.

He’s half on the ground, one leg collapsed beneath him, blood running down one arm from thick gashes of armor-tipped claws, blood running down his face from a hard hit to the head, burns marring his clothes and skin – the fire must have been his pod, then.

As Komari noticed - they were durable as hell, even malfunctioning as his had. She can see the smoke from the impact site, and the long, scrawling track it left in the ground when it crashed and rolled, the thrusters so unfortunately locked out of alignment. Yet he had survived.

She eyes the smoke trailing into the sky, and then looks down again.

There is much more blood on the ground – the leg, she notices keenly. It seems one of the ugly monsters got him in the thigh with one of their heavy, axe-blades staves. The cut was deep, bleeding free and dark.

His steadfast, monotonous luminosity in the Force was waning, his life force fading out.

Taking its sweet time in doing so, however.

Not that he seems particularly concerned, facing his enemies, his killers, with staunch apathy, a Jedi’s deplorable unaffectedness.

Komari would never go like that – quietly, holding on to some fickle, resolute ideal that one should not _feel_ for themselves, that one should embrace the oncoming end as inevitable, as some fitting passage.

She would fight and scream and rage. If she was to die, she would die _hard_ , clinging to every scrap of her existence with all her might.

She has been let go and let down all too easily in her life. Failed too utterly by those she trusted entirely. So if no one else was to fight for her, or love her, or mourn her, she would do these things for herself.

The two remaining Yinchorri are toying with him, their attacks more taunting than harmful, his weakening defense paltry and pitiable, though Giett’s brow drips with the sweat of effort, and his eyes hold a firm edge.

His lightsaber trembles in his meaty, clammy hands, raised still in defiance, and some might admire him for this – but all Komari sees is weakness.

Giett’s gaze rises, and he finds her, standing there on the ridge, and his expression breaks over with relief. “Force is with me.” He smiles grimly, pushing out the effort to attempt to stand, panting with it, shaking with it.

Komari slides down the soft-edge of the riverbed, sand and pebbles scattering under her boots, and the Yinchorri turn.

“Another jedi vermin.” One spits. The other turns angrily and shoves Master Giett back into the dust with the butt end of his stave. Giett lands in a heap, with a disgruntled grunt, pain flaring out in the Force.

The sensation skitters over Komari’s skin, sharp and crackling.

“Now, now.” Komari narrows her gaze, looking up at the two hulking warriors. “Let a man die with some dignity, won’t you?”

Giett huffs a gallows laugh, accompanied by a burst of warm comradery. Komari rolls her eyes and brings her lightsaber up to guard.

“And you, tiny girl?” One of them sneers. “Want to die pretty?”

Komair smirks. “No one dies pretty.” She retorts. “But some of us are lucky enough to live that way.” _Unlike you, you great nasty brute_.

She gathers her balance, tightening her core, and does not lunge – she steps into battle, every footprint and turn of wrist deliberate and purposeful, so tightly attuned to the rippling power she draws out of the air that it may as well be a dance, and they her helpless, clueless partners.

They are clumsy and obvious, and when they are dead in the dust, Komari is left dissatisfied, itching for a better compliment, for a greater display of prowess, for a _challenge_.

“Your master taught you well.” Giett remarks approvingly, lightsaber set aside, hands clasped around the wound in his leg, which still seeped blood through his fingers. Too many severed veins. At this point, he would have been smarter to cut off his own leg with his lightsaber. At least a clean, cauterized wound would give him a better chance.

“My training has been superb, yes.” Komari replies, smiling for the compliment. Master Giett smiles in turn, pallor ashy and dim.

“What do you say? Could I be salvaged?” He cracks a tepid joke, and Komari reaches out and draws his lightsaber to her hand for safe keeping.

Then she lowers herself down in the sand and settles in, watching him. His brow furrows uncertainly.

“Oh, Master Giett, of course.” The estranged padawan replies indulgently, her smile turning as sharp and brilliant as shattered glass. “If anyone else had come for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: We are at the point where the 3.5 plot lines are not going to be in sync, timeline wise, so its gonna get a little jumpy going back and forth, but please bear with me.


	34. Chapter 34

“ _Sian_ -“

“Keep up, Master!” She crows, sound heat whistling off the wing of her fighter as they swooped through the atmosphere.

A crackly sigh over the comm, and the shadow of his fighter swoops down over her nose, turns on keel, and blasts an enemy fighter out of the sky she _maybe_ hadn’t noticed coming up on her tail. “ _You still have much to learn, little one, before I’m the one who needs to be keeping up_.”

“Thank you for saving my tail.” Sian replies sweetly, appropriately chastised, and flinches when she feels a jedi’s death in the Force, a small but undeniable shift of something you hadn’t quite consciously been aware of until it was suddenly gone.

“ _Micah_.” Her master breathes out, and Sian can feel the thread of his grief through their bond, and reaches back with shared sorrow, and simple comfort. Her master’s side of the bond pulls back, closes off, and Sian allows it, for a moment, and then yanks and pushes on it until he allows her to _help him_. She hadn’t known Master Giett well, but he and Master Qui-Gon had been contemporaries. And, for all her master was a prickly sort and often prone to making the wrong impression, he fell into friendships easily, and he felt for them more deeply than most would realize. He was a Master of the Living Force, after all. His ability to connect to other living beings was integral to who he was. Terrible people skills or not.

“ _Let’s get down there, padawan_.” Her master states stiffly. Through their bond, however, she can feel his hope that they get down there in time to save the rest of them, failure already aching, even if there was nothing they could have done.

“Agreed, Master.” Sian reports diligently, and pilots her fighter to fall in line with his.

~*~

Depa’s ears are ringing, between claxons and shouting and explosions – it was no surprise, really, that that particular sense of the world was tinny, muffled, and watery.

And yet, she hears Bultar Swans gutted gasp with perfect clarity, as the padawan’s bond with master snaps, as he dies, leaving the young woman reeling. Depa whirls, sweeping out with the Force, knocking a few of the Yinchorri off their feet, and watches at the dark haired padawan staggers, face shock-pale, wobbles on her feet, and then locks her knees, bites down on her jaw, and tightens her grip on her lightsaber.

 _Good girl_ , Depa thinks; a strange sort of thought, really – Bultar was only a little younger than her.

Fire and metal rain down from the sky, screaming with heat and momentum as the massive ship breaks apart, trailing debris, and falls to the planet. The impacts shudder the ground for miles, and the wind catches the heat and scorches the air in gusts, deadly to get caught in. The sky is thick with shadows – the debris, the fighters, the other ships being forced closer and closer to Yinchorr, being pressed back into the atmosphere, stubbornly refusing to ground. They have to know the Jedi will stop the assault if they ground – its just not their way to surrender, not until they are absolutely forced to.

Some of the Yinchorri they are fighting are planetside defenders, patrols scouring the wreckage; some are survivors of the crash. There are miles and miles of impact craters and enemies, and Depa doesn’t know which way to go. She was trying to get closer to Master Giett, before he died, and she thought she could sense Komari, doing the same, but Master Dooku’s padawan was an elusive presence at the best of times.

A few of the Besh-42’s had found her, and she was grateful for their expertise – they worked together flawlessly as a unit, and they worked out quickly how best to counter the Yinchorri, providing valuable back-up when Bultar had faltered.

The Senior Padawan recovered quickly, however, and soon enough her blade was back in the fray beside Depa’s, dispatching another opponent with deft efficiency, only hesitating a little when it came to a lethal strike. Depa understands – Jedi weren’t killers. Even killing in self-defense was no easy thing, but the Yinchorri as enemies were… well, the jedi were very nearly outmatched. They did not have the means to disable their opponents, rather than dispatch them.

They would simply have to live with that, after. Depa had done it before, during the Stark Hyperspace War, but Bultar… before today, Depa was certain the girl had never been forced to take a life.

With their current opponents taken care of, they have a brief respite before they are discovered again, and Depa lays a hand on the other girls shoulder. She doesn’t promise that everything will be alright, not with what they’re facing, not with what has happened, but she holds her gaze, and in that look she promises that they will _survive_ it.

“Movement south-east.” One of the Besh-42’s grunts, omniscope over his eyes. “One hostile-“

“Check, _not_ hostile.” A second corrects, verifying.

Depa turns and looks, stepping up beside them and being offered the scope. She takes it gratefully – enhancing her vision with the Force was never pleasant, and with her ears already ringing, she didn’t need even more of a headache. The Besh-42 guides the sights, and Depa locates the lone figure picking their way through the shadow of a rocky outcropping.

As if sensing that she was observed, Padawan Vosa pauses and looks up, shading her eyes and then offering a halfhearted wave of acknowledgement. Depa hands the scope back, and they move.

It takes a few minutes to meet up – line of sight cut through by hills and boulders and ridges, guided mostly by their sense of each other until all of them spill into the same small gully, smoke and the smell of charred earth thick in the air, the gully actually a little bit clearer for being sheltered.

“Padawan Vosa.” Depa greets, relieved to see her, the elder padawan coated in dust. She receives a short, blunt nod in turn, and then the blonde sweeps past her with unsteady grace.

“Swan,” She says, voice low and hoarse as she reaches out with uncharacteristic care, taking the girls arm in a bony grasp. “I am so sorry for your loss.” She says, looking the younger woman in the eyes.

She holds something out, and Depa recognizes it at the same time Bultar does.

It’s Master Giett’s lightsaber.

“He died like a Jedi.” The older padawan chokes, her tone twisting oddly.

Bultar’s fingers reach out, shaking, and once she has her master’s lightsaber in hand, it’s like her string have been cut. Her fingers curl around the hilt and the girl just drops to her knees.

Padawan Vosa stands there, having let her fall, and the look on her face is inscrutable, for a moment. Bultar doesn’t sob, or cry – no tears, no gasps, just… hollowed out and shaking.

The older padawan hunches, shifts with distinct awkwardness, and steps away.

Depa offers her a hard look, receives a sharp flash from washed out blue eyes in turn, and steps in, crouching down to take hold of Bultar’s cold hands. For a Jedi, Vosa’s compassion could certainly use some work, she thinks.

“Bultar…”

The dark haired girl takes in a long, trembling breath, struggling for that steadiness she’d had just minutes ago. “He is one with the Force now.” She murmurs forcibly to herself, fingers knuckle-white around her masters lightsaber.

“So he is with you always.” Depa replies calmly, assuredly.

Bultar nods, and Depa squeezes her fingers, and then carefully draws them both back to their feet. There will be time for Padawan Swan to deal with this, but that time is not _now_. They themselves are still in danger.

A ship explodes in the sky above them, and two fighters sweep low, familiar presences flashing by as the draft in their wake buffets through the gulley, dragging hard sand and dried twigs and scraps of vegetation with it, making them duck and cover their face for protection.

Vosa seems to recover the quickest, shading her hands with her eyes and looking up. “I think our ride is here.” She remarks with droll cheer.

Depa gives her an odd look. “So it is.” The young knight replies.

~*~

“You are _covered_ in dirt.” Sian remarks, jogging under the wing of her fighter to check on her passengers now that she and Master Qui-Gon have successfully returned their wayward charges to the judicial cruiser. This is their second retrieval this mission, and Sian rather thinks their doing well.

Even if not everybody came back this time.

“Well, our jobs can be dirty business.” Komari remarks dryly, brushing a futile hand across her dust-encrusted, wrinkled tunics.

“ _And_ blood.” Sian remarks, nostrils flaring at the scent before she sees it on the older padawan’s hands.

Komari pick at her fingers with a grimace. “Not mine.” She replies, washed out blue gaze flicking up as she reaches out and puts two hands on Sian’s shoulder. “Little Sister, I am _fine_. Quit fretting over me.” She smirks teasingly.

“I can fret as I please.” Sian grumbles. She’d really been worried, when she felt Master Giett die. Sian reaches up, wrapping warm fingers around Komari’s cold wrist in relief.

“Well I _think_ ,” Komari says pointedly, “ that there is _someone_ here could use your comfort a bit more, hm?” Her bone blonde brows raise, and she cuts a glance at Bultar Swan. “She could use a friend right now and you, as I recall, seemed to want to be a little more _friendly_ with her.” She teases.

Sian blinks, and shifts, feeling her cheeks heat but also… she glances at Bultar, who is staring rigidly out at absolutely nothing, face pale, eyes dry, posture perfect and still, her fingers clutched around Micah Giett’s lightsaber.

She glances back at Komari and fidgets, uncomfortable. “I don’t think it’s a very good time to be pursuing her like that.” Sian says with quiet sympathy. “Her _master_ just _died_.”

Komari’s mouth twists; disappointment, irritation, a bit of a grimacing wince, there and then gone. Sian has no idea what just went through her head. “Then go be her _friend_ , Sian. It can always turn into more when the timing is better. Just… don’t waste your opportunities. I’ve learned that the hard way.”

Sian nods in gratitude, darting in for a hug. “Thank you, big sister. I’m glad you’re alright.”

Komari flashes a quick grin, squeezing her tightly before pushing her back roughly enough that the younger padawan stumbles, but then, Komari wasn't one for such open displays of affection. “Don’t you worry about me." She remarks, a gleam in her eyes. "I always survive.”


	35. Chapter 35

Fay feels the breeze skittering through the temple halls, and even to one not raised here, it feels wrong. Dust schuffs and swirls along the floor, and the cracks in the walls tell her she is nearing the end of the structural integrity of the dome, and cannot go much further.

She does not desire to go much further.

The Creche Tower, the Creche library and learning rooms, the chamber of the Council of Reassignment, and the corresponding archives were all a total loss. The data could be recovered – back-ups of all the various council’s archives had been instituted by Madame Nu after the Jedi had been forced to leave the Temple during the pandemic without them.

The High Council Tower, the various offices and administrata, the Council Records – those were also a complete loss. The vaults beneath had been damaged, but the reinforced structural support there had kept them from collapse.

Entire levels of living quarters beneath and around those two towers had been crushed, and part of the gardens, the training salles, several atriums and one of the Dining Halls had been damaged, sliding away into the void of the lower levels.

They were still undergoing rescue efforts for jedi trapped in the layers upon layers of rubble.

The majority of the Grand Archive, the Tower of First Knowledge, The Tower of the Reconciliation Council, and the Halls of Healing, and the living quarters on that side of the temple had some superficial damage, but remained largely intact, as did the central spire above the ziggurat.

The Council has already discussed the potential of recovery, and concluded that at this time, they can repair the dome and seal the structure once more, but rebuilding the towers was simply beyond their budget.

Perhaps for the best, some had muttered.

The Jedi were growing ill at ease on Coruscant.

Master Gallia had spoken of a ‘request’ on Alderaan’s behalf to establish a temple there – a disused academy ready and waiting, should they choose to honor that request, and a debate had sparked, of reviving old temples, of decentralizing their population. It wasn’t the first tie the topic has come up, but it was the first time it was given such dire consideration.

Broken tile and transparisteel crack and pop under her feet. It’s the middle of the night cycle, and the Temple is dark. The breeze whispers, and Fay feels the faint shift of warning as she turns the next corridor. She slows, trailing to a stop, and surveys the ugly face of the collapsed corridor before her, and the gaping rent above it that led to a traffic-lit sky.

The damage bothers her, viscerally. The devices that had been discovered had been expertly placed, but the yield… the Coruscanti blast engineers had argued and argued over the yield. Their conclusion was that the towers make-up must have been flawed in some way – perhaps the duracrete poorly mixed upon construction. There was much more damage than they would have expected.

She reaches out with the Force, and she could swear there was _something_ … some discordant whisper hidden in the ruin that had started imperceptibly and carried devastating consequences.

A shiver passes over her skin, cold creeping at her back, the shadows seeming to pool.

Fay turns, glowering into the dark, her inner force burning like a bonfire.

A wry, airy chuckle reaches her, and with a shift of shadow, a familiar masked figure stands before her, face tilted up, the dark gems encrusted around her searing, acidic gaze glittering dully. “There is a certain beauty in it, don’t you think?” Lady Livion entreats.

“I don’t find beauty in death.” Fay retorts sharply.

“There is no beauty in death.” Livion replies tartly. “But in destruction… in the fall of grand designs and collapse of stars… there is sometimes more treasure to be found in the memory of what _was_ , than in the reminders of what _is_. Absence is powerful.”

Fay studies the – ghost, she supposes. The armory must have been damaged alongside the salles, cracking the seals on the vaults there. Livion was a shade bound to a crystal – she could speak, she could lash out with the Force, perhaps – though not so far from the object of her power as this, Fay believes, sensing a weakness about her appearance here – but she could not cause _damage_. At least, not to Fay, and not to the Temple.

“Do you _want_ something?” Fay inquires, wondering.

The shadow-image of the other woman ripples, twists – her mask gleams, her mask is bathed in blood, her mask is gone, there again.

“I just wanted to _see_.” She replies simply. “I am not the only thing creeping about around here, you know.” Her voice lilts with a dark tease. “And it gets rather boring…. being trapped in a box.”

“I suppose it does.” Fay replies cautiously. “What other things?”

A hand darts up towards Livion’s chin, and she chuckles with tinkling amusement, whispering coyly: “Don’t you know, Fay? Old places like this have their ghosts.”

 _I thought you didn’t believe our dead lingered_ , Fay thinks critically, but doesn’t have the chance to speak. Then again, perhaps Livion was speaking in terms of things more like her – of echoes and shades and trapped memories.

Livions phosphorous gaze turns on the collapse before them, the ruin and the weight of a tarnished home. “But this was the work of no ghost.” She adds, something coldly retrospective in her tone, possessive and angered.

“It’s damning, really.” The Dark Lady murmurs, turning a burning gaze on Fay. “How insidious such small flaws can really be. How they can build over time. How you can apply just the right amount of pressure, and watch whole worlds come crashing down.”

Fay held that searing, leeching, caustic gaze, and felt that Lady Livion was, in her own way, offering her a warning, speaking to her of far more than fractured stone.

 _I know_ , she thinks _. I know_.

“Are you helping me?” Fay muses.

The mask slips away like mist, and the only response Fay if offered is a wry twist of dark lips, before she is suddenly and abruptly alone again.

The golden-haired master sighs, looking up at the sky lit with streams of traffic, and misses the stars.

~*~

“ _Wraith_!”

The Nightwalker Healers Padawan startles and growls low in their throat, suddenly crowded and surrounded by three strapping, aggressively forward Nightbrothers. Mismatched eyes flicker with warning, and Howl shoves Talon and Savage back a step. He does not bother to move back himself, though Wraith would appreciate it.

The Nightwalker was finding their place in the hustle and bustle of the Healing Halls, but after a life of agreeable solitude, they still did not find enjoyment in being pressed by the presence of other beings in their personal space.

Still, all Wraith could really do was stand and bear it – Howl was taller and heavier and shoving him would likely do absolutely nothing for Wraith.

“Step back, please.” They still request, quiet but firm. The boundaries between Nightbrothers and Nightsisters and Nightwalkers were uncertain among the Jedi, blurred and confused, given the cultural differences, and Wraith did not know if the Nightbrothers would continue to honor a Nightwalker’s untouchability.

Savage snarls lowly, shifting awkwardly on his cast, Talon glowers mutinously, his maroon skin a palette of bruises, and Howl shuffles back a half-step, pale eyes pinched with discomfort. His arm should be in a sling, but Howl was a creature predisposed to hide weakness. Wraith reminds themselves to consider simply binding the broken arm to his chest to see if that might deter such idiocy for a slightly longer period of time.

Jedi were trickling back into the stable sectors of the Temple – mostly right to the Halls, but with so many wounded, supplies were limited, and treatment was worst cases first. Bacta was especially reserved at the moment – which was both helped and hindered by the generic distrust of many of their patients for the substance. It was only to be expected.

“Wraith.” Howl repeats, less aggressively, and the Nightwalker acknowledges the unspoken plea in his gaze with an acknowledging nod.

“Master Koon is still being treated for hypoxia, but is expected to suffer no lasting ill-effects. Ravage is being monitored for his concussion, and Leska is out of surgery.” Feral was the only one among them completely fine, and as far as Wraith was aware, he was sleeping in whatever spot his brother had found to stash him. Master Koon’s mask had been damaged, and he had ben unconscious upon recovery, with several broken bones – but as a Jedi Master, he’d also been able to put himself into a healing trance, which gave him far better odds than he would otherwise have. Leska had been the worst off – broken several bones in her feet, snapped the bones in her leg, compressed her spine with a hard landing from a long fall and lost a lot of blood – and she was lucky. Were she anything less than a Jedi Padawan, that fall would have killed her.

“But she’ll be okay?” Talon demands, but his soft voice wobbles a bit.

“She’ll recover. It might take time, but she will be recover.” Wraith replies. Temple medicine, they had discovered, was no Nightsister magicks, but it was nearly as good, and had the added benefit of being available to everyone, and not just to those who could beg the priestesses favor.

“Thank the goddess.” Savage mutters, glowering at the floor. Wraith eyes the younger Nightbrother speculatively. They imagine Savage feels a debt to his siter-padawan quite keenly – she’d taken care of Feral for him, and Feral was safe and sound.

“You’re supposed to thank the _Force_.” Talon snipes moodily, hiding his relief.

“Thank both.” Wraith proposes mildly. “And then thank the Healers.”

“Thank you, Wraith.”

“Not _me_.” Wraith sighs.

~*~

Bruck stumbles, and a hand catches his elbow. “Easy there.” The padawan says, small eyes full of concern. “You should take a break, drink some water. You’ve done a lot.” They say.

 _You have no idea what I’ve done_ , Bruck wants to scream, but instead he bites his lip, nods smally, and shuffles off in the direction he’s sent. His skin is a grime of sweat and dust. His feet are hot and chafing to blisters in his boots. His eyes burn dryly – too much crying, he thinks shamefully – and his hands ache, raw and overused and scraped.

They’ve been moving rubble for days, alongside droids and coruscanti volunteers. They moved it with the Force until they couldn’t find the energy and the focus for that, and then they moved it by hand, because they were gripped by this undying persistence, this need to keep moving, keep going. Like if they did, everything would be alright again.

Everything would not be alright again, the white haired disciple thinks, stumbling again over his own feet. He stops when a canteen is offered to him, and gulps, swallowing the grit in his mouth with the first slosh. He wipes his chin when it spills, and trudges over to the steps, sitting down, several clusters of similar-state disciples and padawans and journeymen nearby.

He’s just…sore, body and spirit, and guilt makes his stomach churn, makes even water settle uneasily. He’s guilty, and he’s scared. He’s really scared.

He doesn’t know how to fix this.

“ – but how did they _know_?” The shrill question reaches his ears, and Bruck knows immediately what they’re talking about. It’s the same thing they’re all talking about.

 _Someone had to have let the enemy in_ , they’re saying.

 _Someone had to have shown them the way_.

_Someone betrayed us._

_Someone betrayed us._

_Someone betrayed us_.

He could feel the fear, the suspicion, the anger – quiet, but ever-present, a brittle undercurrent seeding through the Jedi. The uneasy looks – the clenched jaws and cold shoulders being given mostly to disciples and journeymen – they weren’t _real_ Jedi, after all. It would make sense for it to be one of _them_.

Bruck swallows tightly and curls in in himself, dropping his canteen to dig his fingers into his hair.

_This is my fault._

_This is my fault_.

It had been such a small thing, just a little favor. Just a datachip, and Bruck knew with absolute certainty that this was the result. That this had been the _plan_.

He felt used, and ashamed.

It was his fault the Temple was so badly damaged, his fault they’d lost so many Jedi – and not just Knights. They were keeping it quiet, but he’d heard early this morning that two of youngling clans had not made it out of the creche.

His fault that strife was sneaking in amongst them, distrust and fear of each other, ready to pull the Jedi apart.

 _Enough. It has to be enough_ , he thinks. _It has to_ stop.

Bruck scrubs at his eyes, pushes back to his feet – sways, still dizzy and exhausted- he hadn’t been sleeping. He takes hold of all of his guilt and all of his fear, until it is a hard, cold knot in his stomach and around his heart, and he makes himself walk, heart pounding, hands shaking, not sure who he’s looking for until he sees the flash of honey-gold that was Master Fay’s hair.

She’s escorting a hover-chair across the plaza, the medical banner on its side bright in the sunshine of mid-afternoon. Some of the wounded had been overflowed into Coruscant’s hospitals, prior to the Halls being deemed safe for reoccupation. With her is also Master’s Gallia and Mundi.

Terror roots him to the spot, making his ears buzz and his face turn bloodless, and then Bruck swallows it to, until his chest practically hurts with it, and makes himself walk.

The woman in the chair is a blonde too, handsome-faced and lively for someone on an assisted breathing machine, with two stumps where her legs used to be.

Bruck almost vomits. There’s no blood on her – she’s clean and stable. But she’s also lost nearly half her body – and that’s his fault too.

It’s her that catches sight of him first, blonde brow creasing into a line, her gaze firm and softening with concern at the sight of him, the sight of the _state_ of him.

 _Don’t_ – he thinks skittishly. None of them should feel _sorry_ for him.

This was _his fault_.

Because he was weak, and cowardly, and selfish.

“Are you alright?” She asks.

“Captain Rozess-“ Master Fay pauses, and turned, following her line of sight. “Hello?” She says inquisitively.

Bruck barely meets their eyes, and then looks down, staring at the ground as his eyes pool with tears.

“M-Master Fay.” He manages, a shaky murmur, throat closing up. “I need…” His chest hurts. It _hurts_. “I-I’m sorry.” He chokes out, a brittle, exhausted sob. He scrubs angrily at his eyes. He shouldn’t be crying. He has no right to be crying! “I’m so so-sorry. I need to t-tell you something.”


	36. Chapter 36

“Ugh, the Trade Federation.” Obi-Wan and Satine both mutter, belly-down on a ridge with Sha’me between them.

“Feel that strongly about them, do you?” The twi’lek muses, twitching a lek at the padawan.

“They tried to murder my master, and they are greedy and corrupt and leave worlds worse than they found them.” Obi-Wan mutters.

“Fair enough.” The Mandalorian twi’lek shrugs.

“They’re getting worse than ever.” Satine remarks, peering at the mining site, and its visitors, halfway down the blue valley from their little observation spot, tucked into the roots of a low mountain chain. “The new trade taxes have made things harder for the local guilds and smaller operations here on the Rim, and the corporate aggression is more vicious than ever.” The young woman grits her teeth. “The Senate isn’t helping, letting them arm themselves like that. To fend off so-called ‘pirates’. If you want to find pirates, look no further." She scoffs sharply. "Even here – my people are being stripped of resources and we get so _little_ in return. If the Mining Guilds and the Trade Federation have their way, Draboon will be another lifeless rock.” It angers her, deeply and ferociously, but her people also have few options, so far from the Core and the bulk of the Republic partnerships. They were technologically advanced but agriculturally poor. Upsetting the wrong trade partners was more than an economic hazard – her people would risk famine.

“Apparently we _all_ feel very strongly about it.” Sha’me mutters.

“You don’t?” The teens retort.

Sha’me shifts up a little, glancing aside at each of them, eyes dancing, lips twitching in a smirk. Unwittingly, Obi-Wan’s ears turn red and Satine can feel her throat get warm at that ‘ _how adorable are the two of you_?’ look.

They then make the mistake of glancing at each other, which doesn’t help. Satine tears her gaze away first, determined not to let herself fall into distraction. And Obi-Wan, she thinks, is a terrible distraction. One she's not sure she can afford.

“This gets messier the deeper we go.” Obi-Wan mutters, clearing his throat and focusing. “MandalMotors to _Kyr'stad_ , _Kyr'stad_ to the Mining Guild, the Mining Guild to the Trade Federation…” The look in his eyes turns dark, troubled, and his right hand clenches – a habit he has, Satine has noticed, when his thoughts tread to some place he refuses to explain.

“Death Watch runs deep.” Satine replies sharply. “We knew that.”

Obi-Wan looks back at her, the light catching the grey in the blue and making it shine. “But does it run _too_ deep?” He asks seriously. “Losing is hardly an option, but I fear that victory could just as easily break the mandalorian people.”

“It _won’t_.” Satine insists, fingers digging into dirt and grassroots. “The _Mando’ade_ are strong.”

His lips twitch faintly, the light in his eyes softening. “They have strong leaders.” He says, with an uncanny and infuriating ability to be both completely sincere _and_ cheeky.

“Solid flirtation. Well done.” Sha’me remarks dryly, and Obi-Wan closes his eyes in pain, ears turning _very_ red.

Satine’s lips turn in a coy smirk, and she turns her face away just enough to hide it.

“If you two are finished…” The twi’lek smirks, with a smidgen of admonishment to accompany her amusement, “ do we think there is anything to be had with this, or can we get off this rock?” She gestures to the mining operation below.

Obi-Wan looks down the valley for a long moment, pallor evening out as he composes himself enough to look the twi’lek in the eye and not be embarrassed. “I think what we’ve seen is all the information we need here. It’s a small operation, likely nothing of strategic value in the databanks. So… just the part Vesh needs to get the _Lighthawk_ back up and flying.”

“Nowhere did I expect in a day in the life of a Duchess to find objectives quite as enticing as petty thievery.” Satine remarks with dry humor.

“ _Redal’ika_ , there are some people I should introduce you to who could tell you _stories_ about the things your father got up to.” Sha’me remarks, and squeezes Satine’s shoulder in the moment it takes her to remember to breathe around the clench of grief.

“Really?” Satine manages to get out, painfully yearning for more of him, of his memory, than she had gotten.

Tattooed brows arch, lekku twitch, and a light dances in the older womans eyes. “ _Stories_.” She enunciates, and Satine finds a smile touching her chilled lips, the grief a little easier to shoulder.

~*~

Ben gives him a narrowed eyed look over the rim of his tin tea-cup, half-eaten bowl of breakfast propped on his knee, sitting on the ramp of Fett’s _kom’rk_ class vessel to eat. Fifteen hours of sleep have done wonderful things for the dark circles that had been under his eyes, and a shower and trim seemed to have neatly cut away the more visceral impression of frayed exhaustion he’d been carrying.

“I was under the impression that my actions may have upset the _Mando’ade_ , but the furtive, pleading looks _you_ got the entire walk over here leads me to believe my assumptions may have been misplaced.” The jedi remarks with coruscanti snippiness. “What’s happened that no one wants to tell me?”

 _Damn good instincts_ , Jango thinks, stepping up to him and reaching down to scoop up the bowl, giving him a light kick to get up and follow him inside.

“Oh dear.” Ben sighs, rising to his feet. “This can’t be good.”

“Not really, no.” Jango remarks shortly, and then curses himself for his irritable temper, but just… it’s a shit piece of news to have to break to a friend, and he doesn’t want to have to do it.

Ben follows him, dropping into the lounge in expectation while Jango disposes of the bowl in the galley. When Jango steps back around, Ben is leaned back with his arms crossed, one hand stroking his beard in expectation, flat blue-grey gaze following him with keen, uncomfortable acuity.

It makes his skin prickle, so he marches back over to him and, without much grace of ado, hands him the datapad.

The first thing Ben does, on habit, is close the feed Jango has open and go right for the casualty reports.

“No, _vod_ …” Jango sighs, aggravated and restless, and yanks the pad back, reopening the feed. “This is it.” He shoves it back at him, and sinks down onto the bench beside him, present and waiting.

He waits.

Ben gaze flickers over the screen. His brow tightens, mouth thinning out, hand stilling till his knuckles against his lower lip. Tension seeps into his frame, the grip on the pad turning stiff.

Jango waits, rubbing his palms together like an anxious teenager, head low as he leaned over his knees and stared at the floor, waiting for something to break.

Nothing does. Jango waits, and nothing breaks.

He drags his gaze over, and Ben is… still. That unnatural calm sort of still, pure focus and detachment accompanied by an instinctual warning in the back of Jango’s mind, a chill on his neck, something primal that recognizes danger.

He grits his teeth and bears it, looking away, giving his friend _time_.

The seconds stretch into a minute, the minute stretches into two, ten, twenty….

Jango can’t bear it any longer, the tension under his skin.

“ _Vod_ …” Jango says slowly, voice low and cautious. Ben doesn’t even blink.

“ _Ben_.” He tries, not sure if he should reach out or if that was a very bad idea.

Jango wasn’t exactly shy of bad ideas.

He reaches out, but his fingers barely make contact with skin before Ben seems to – wake up, or take notice, in a way, shifting abruptly to set the pad aside and lower his hands, gripping the edge of the bench and turning his gaze to the far wall – or through it. “I’m fine.” He utters, barely acknowledging Jango.

“Banthashite.” Jango snaps.

Ben scoffs sharply. “Alright. I’m _not_ fine.” He says, and then sucks in a sharp breath, pressing down – everything. “Everything I do, and sometimes it just seems so fucking _futile_.” He snarls, and the anger on his breath, on his face, turns quickly to pain. The _jetii_ closes his eyes, tilting his head up, and he looks so fucking _lost_.

And Jango – Jango’s been there. After Galidraan, hell, after actually getting his freedom back, after two long, miserable years of slavery. Wrapped up in bitterness and guilt and isolation.

Till some fucking Jedi happened to him.

The _Mand’alor_ , however, doesn’t know what to fucking _say_. He’s a man of actions, not the best with his words – not with the ones he feels he needs for a situation like this, anyways.

 _Ah fuck_ , he thinks. _To hell with it_.

Jango pushes forward and kisses the man. Their friendship as survived worse hazards than a blunt offer of physical intimacy. It’s been a damn long time since he’s been with anyone, and he suspects the same was true of Ben, but he does recall that sex was a fantastically expedient way to get out of his own head. To stop thinking and just feel, just _be_ with someone else.

Personally, he finds a good fight works just as much as a good fuck, but his _vod_ was less inclined to violence.

Ben startles a breath, and then presses back against him _hard_ , just as urgent and demanding and full of unexpected heat, and then, damnable _jetii_ that he was, growls and breaks it off, turning aside and breathing harshly.

He huffs, denying want. “This is inviting more pain than need be.” The red-head remarks ruefully, drawing apart.

Jango grunts impatiently, flushed and a little slower on switching gears after _that_ enthusiastic response. “Not everything involving a Mandalorian turns into a fight.” He mutters, deliberately misunderstanding just to buy himself a second to catch his breath.

Ben gives him a look, and Jango leans back, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Wasn’t offering anything more than comfort, _vod_. Don’t go falling in love with me.” He drawls, splaying his hands in a rather poignant gesture of ‘ _I’m doing my best, that doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing._ ’

Ben’s lips twist, that wry little cracking smile, gaze turning back with a touch of fire and wist.

“It’s not that either.” He demurs with a sigh, pushing an errant lock of hair out of his face. Give it a minute, and Jango knows it will slip free again. Ben settles back, some of the rigidness easing from his frame in some form of surrender. “It’s that conversation we keep not having that I’m more concerned with.”

 _Ah, damn it_.

“You want to have that _now_?” Jango asks skeptically. He’s pushed at it before, and let it be pushed off, but this time… He wants to tip the other man _away_ from the edge, not towards it.

Ben swallows, fingers twitching as he looks away, gaze flicking to the datapad. “Under the circumstances….” He whispers out. “Yes, I rather would have it all out now.”

Jango draws in a deep breath and studies the other man, sees the fractures slipping though to the surface, and the sharp, critical calculation gleaming in his eyes. This isn’t an emotional decision, Jango thinks critically. It’s an evaluated risk.

Trust between the two of them was deep, but never simple, and always conditional.

Whatever Ben was about to drop on him – he believed it would put that trust in danger. Which gave Jango two options – either hold to it and stand with him; or, if he can’t, if it is too much to bear, send the jedi away. Either option holds something useful for the crafty bastard beside him. If he stays, he has Jango Fett on his side. If he goes, he can be with his people while they’re wounded.

Jango almost laughs, when he realizes Ben has better odds regardless of the outcome than Jango does.

 _I need this bastard more than he needs me_.

Ben, he thinks, _wanted_ their friendship more – Jango will admit he’d gone into it with grudging skepticism – but Ben was never afraid to sacrifice his wants for his cause. He was rather a self-destructive human being, all told, all too ready to cause himself pain.

 _Alright_ , the _Mand’alor_ thinks, sensing the challenge. _Try me, vod_.

“Alright…” Jango prompts aloud, settling back and crossing his arms, golden brown gaze lit with a sharp, burning edge.

Bens lips twitch, head dipping in faint acknowledgement. He licks his lips and glances away, stormfront blue-grey eyes pinching as he sought out where to start.

“Most of what I can tell you,” He says quietly, the words reluctant. “ you won’t believe.”

Jango grunts. “Then tell me what I _will_ believe.”

Another tug towards a wry smile, quickly faded into a pinched, somber line. Ben takes a breath, pauses, takes another. Jango waits him out. Patience, he’s been told, is a virtue.

“What do you think you would have done, if you’d never met me?” The red-head starts, voice soft and deliberate, colored with experience. Jango narrows his eyes, feeling his mouth pull, wondering what sort of understanding Ben was trying to lead him into.

“Figuring I escaped slavery with Ohnaka?” Jango remarks, earning an affirmative hum from a man not _quite_ refusing to look him in the eye, but whose hunching shoulders and tight hands weren’t exactly an optimal sign.

Jango thinks about it, letting his thought turn over, letting the possibility run deep.

 _I would never have returned to Mandalore_.

The thought hits him hard and true, and he grinds his teeth, runs a hand back through his hair, fingernails scraping his scalp.

He thinks about that.

“I’d have drifted.” He says with certainty. He’s many things – a liar isn’t one of them. He won’t lie to himself about it. “I’d have drifted, “ He repeats, nodding to himself in acceptance, dealing with it as simple fact. “ following the code my father left me until everything I should have been ate me up alive.”

He thinks about where his head had been, his heart, about the hatred that had laced his every thought, the anger that _still_ burned in his bones. He thinks about the path that bitterness would have put him on.

He looks at the man beside him – the Jedi.

“Probably would have gone on to kill a few _jetiise_ , till one of them got lucky and killed me.” He says, a dark sort of humor coloring his tone, for all that he finds the option – bleak.

But that would have been right, he thinks. To die the way his _Haat Mando’ade_ had died.

Another thought strikes him, and he snorts. “Maybe that even would have been you.”

Ben scoffs, and it’s a chillingly empty sound. He stares at the far wall, the look on his face inescapable. Jango shifts uneasily, but he’s in it now. He can’t turn away.

“A jedi did kill you.” Ben says simply, irrefutably, and Jango feels a shiver work its way across his skin, sinking right down into flesh and bone and even deeper. It sounds wrong. It sounds impossible. It sounds _insane_ , and Ben’s never had an even keel – _but_. He says it, and Jango Fett _believes_ it. “But you didn’t just kill a few. You killed _all_ of us.” Ben exhales, bitter with grief, and offers a helpless gesture. “From a certain point of view.”


	37. Chapter 37

“I’m going to let you explain that.” Jango finally grunts out, the words slow and level, when Ben manages to drag his gaze to flicker over and meet the _Mand’alors_ , expecting – something not pretty, if Jango were to guess.

 _I’m willing to ride this out, vod, whatever kind of crazy this is_. He thinks demandingly. _Convince me_.

Hesitantly surprised, Ben nods, hands loosening some, the cringe in his frame softening out.

“Suppose you never met me. Suppose you went down that path you could see yourself on. Suppose … _someone_ found you, before it ate you up and you went looking for your way out. Someone very much _not_ like me. And they offered you a part in a plan that would make your vengeance a reality. A complete vengeance – not against a few jedi, but the entire Order.” Ben murmurs. “The Jedi killed every last one of your _vod_ that day at Galidraan; their plan would see every last Jedi dead in turn.”

Jango feels his stomach tighten, his heartbeat pound a little harder. He could all but taste what his answer would have been, to an offer like that – _yes, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything_.

And he hates, he _hates_ , that Ben’s tone is both condemnation and consolation – that he knows what choice Jango would have made, and he _understands_.

Jango doesn’t understand. This is – fiction, or dreams, or – but it hits him deep, it strikes likes it’s _real_ , and he doesn’t understand why.

His fists tighten hard, and he glares his _jetii_ down, and Ben looks back, the shadows behind his gaze deeper and darker than Jango can fathom.

 _I’ll play_. Jango thinks, unsettled and angry and not sure at which of them that anger is pointed. Probably both. “We both know what my choice would have been. What did I do?” He demands.

Ben breaks his gaze, looking away, and Jango breathes a little easier, the weight of the _jetii’s_ lack of judgement not pinning him so tightly when Ben wasn’t staring him down.

“You made an army under their direction.” Ben says simply.

Jango scowls, brow furrowing doubtfully. “The _Mando’ade_?” He questions, the suggestion not seeming to fit.

“No. No, you never did – would have – returned to Mandalore. And _Mando’ade_ would have been… too _independent_.” His tone turns silky, dark and morbidly indulgent on the last word, like a sick joke was being made. Jango _does not_ like it. “They commissioned a Clone Army, with you as the template. They were bred and raised to be nothing more than soldiers for the cause. Decanted as toddlers and issue-ready for battle by the budding age of ten – an enhanced maturity rate.”

Jango’s brows twitch upwards, and he absorbs that, casting aside questions of _how_ , and _where_ , and _who the hell funded_ \- “ A whole army of me, fighting the Jedi?” He drawls out, not quite derisive – just not quite sure he could believe it, either.

Ben’s smile turns shatteringly painful. “Give them _some_ credit, Jango.” He drawls humorlessly, tone cold. “Their designs were far crueler than that. No, the Clone Army fought _for_ the Jedi. Well, for the Republic, which… _appointed_ the Jedi Knights to be its Generals and Commanders.” He adds with biting carelessness.

The red-heads hands are curling again, one of them trembling a little, caught by the other to make it stop. His blue-grey gaze was dark and shining as he stares at the floor, anger draining out, in its place something far less energetic and far more hopeless.

“The war started the same day we discovered the clones even _existed_ , supposedly created at _our_ discretion. We were given a very stark choice, with little time to actually consider…. _any_ aspect of it.” His lips tighten, eyes hardening with remembered frustration. “The Clones Troopers _would_ be made use of – so either these men, these _slaves_ that were made for us, were slaves of the Jedi, or slaves of the Senate. They didn’t have rights – the Senate didn’t even consider them _people_.” He rages, seeking something like forgiveness without expecting to actually receive it. “Our custody was the only sort of protection they could be given. We thought it was… we thought it was the best we could do, given the circumstances. It wasn’t.”

Jango’s jaw locks tight, stomach churning, thinking – _I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have made men to be that, to be slaves_ –

Be he isn’t a liar. He won’t lie to himself.

He probably would have found it… poetic, in the darkest of ways.

“They were good men.” Ben utters harshly, breathing turning sharp and fast. “They were good _friends_. And we had no idea what we were doing. Jedi are not _made_ to be _soldiers_.”

He closes down, drowning in it, and Jango grabs his wrist. Ben bows his head, looking bent by the world, by the weight of it.

“It was the Clone Commanders who trained _us_ and kept each other alive, in the beginning. Clone Commander twenty-two twenty-four.” Ben scrubs a hand over his beard, looks up and meets Jango eyes bitterly. “That’s the…designation of the second to take command under me. He and a handful of the others built the military protocol from the ground up, and they were damn good at it. The Grand Army of the Republic was the greatest military machine the galaxy had seen since the Mandalorian Crusades. He was one of its best, and I could name a hundred systems who owed their better fates to him. A thousand or more that owed their better fates to all of them. Or would have, had the end of the war been different. Not that they would ever have acknowledged it.” A muscle twitches in his jaw, more scorn in that small tick than Jango would think a _jetii_ capable of.

“If I had had my way, he’d have been a general in his own right by the end of the war, but the Republic never allowed a clone to be promoted above Marshall Commander. Even that I had to fight for.” Ben grimaces, gaze rife with regret. “That man was Cody.”

The horror of it just keeps coming.

Cody, _Cody_ was-

“He was a _copy_ of me?” Jango bites out.

“They were not _copies_!” Ben snaps, jerking his wrist out of Jango’s grasp and glaring at him furiously. “Every one of them, Jango Fett, every single fucking one of them was his own man, his own _person_. They had your genetics and your training and that was _it_. The rest of them, every bit of it they were allowed to keep, that was their own.”

It’s one of the very few times in his life Jango actually broaches the idea of apologizing, he just… doesn’t know how, for this – this-

 _Fuck_.

“Did you love him?” Jango asks instead, because he’s a fucking bastard and because this wound needs to bleed. It had festered long enough.

“They were just as much my brothers as any jedi I’ve ever known.” Ben cuts out, tone hard, but his rage temper being pressed back down. “Cody was - more than that, I’ll admit – there were few I ever trusted as much as I did him - but I wasn’t _in_ love with him. We weren’t like Secura and Bly….” He blows out a hard breath, shaking his head.

Jango doesn’t think he’s lying. He just looks like he’s trying to believe what he’s saying, and trying to distance himself from it at the same time.

The problem with his _jetii_ , Jango acknowledges, is that for one scary fucking dangerous bastard, the man was also a bleeding heart.

“Ben.” Jango presses, leaning towards his space, imposing and forcing an answer. Ben’s glare snaps back up, cutting and wounded.

“Yes, I loved him. We loved them, and they loved us. That wasn’t a lie.” Ben says the last as if he’d believed it was, once, and Jango has a dreadful, terrible feeling about that. “That wasn’t a lie.” He repeats weakly. “It just made it worse.”

Ben falls silent for a hard, difficult minute.

“Three years.” He croaks out. “Three years we fought bled and died together, side by side. Those years were hell, and the horrors of that war were… beyond counting. It was _only_ three years…” He says it like he’s only just realized how little time that is, voice hollowed and horrified.

He lifts a fist, presses his mouth down against it, eyes falling shut. It was a hell of a thing, a damning thing – one Jango understood, in part. How such small stretches of time could somehow dominate your entire life.

The jedi forces himself to breathe, to open his eyes, to continue.

“At the beginning… the first generations of troopers - they were _ten_ before they hit the battlefield.” He gets out, all but spitting the number in self-disgust and weary regret. “And we burned through them so quickly that they started aging them faster, sending them out quicker, with less training, less experience, just…less. We called the last batches _shinies_ , because everything about them was painfully new, just like their shitty factory-fresh plastoid armor. Some of them were barely _six_ – full grown men, sure, not like our padawans being made Commanders at an adolescent _fourteen_ , but their lives were…so short. Short and made shorter.”

 _Child soldiers_.

Child _slave_ soldiers.

Ben turns his face away, grappling with his words, with his emotions. Jango is left to reel with the deluge of it. His mind rebels, bluntly refusing to accept – it wasn’t _real_ , it _couldn’t_ be-

But it was real enough in _some_ way, wasn’t it? It had to be. Real enough to break the man beside him.

“It was all so perfectly played.” It comes out even, but so thin, so damn _defeated_. “The war wasn’t just killing Jedi, it was…. _ruining_ us. What we were doing, what we were forced to do, what we _chose_ to do… if we had really won the war, I don’t know if we ever would have been able to recognize ourselves after.” His gaze turns against the far wall again, pinched and uncertain. “I don’t know if who we were would ever have been recovered. We were just too…. _tainted_ by it. We’d changed ourselves too much. But we never got the chance to find out.”

Ben swallows, throat bobbing.

Jango braces himself for the inevitable conclusion left in the spaces Ben’s words were working around. He takes whatever he could say and swallows it, and _listens_.

“We were winning, you know.” It’s quiet, almost pleading, and it erupts into a sudden helpless _fury_. “We had victory in our fucking hands, and that’s when – that’s when the trap finally closed.” There and gone again, the blaze fades.

Ben takes a shaky breath, lets out a sob of an exhale.

Jango wants to tell him to stop.

He doesn’t. Ben has to tell it now, and Jango has to hear it.

“As part of the modifications made to enhance the clones serviceability as soldiers,” the older mans tone turns flat and dull and detached. “ an inhibitor chip – so we were told – had been implanted in their cerebral cortex. To counteract unstable aggression.” He sucks in air like it hurts. “It wasn’t an inhibitor.”

His eyes stutter shut, and Jango can see in the pain of that gesture that it was something Ben had learned far, far too late.

“The war was all but _over_. It was finally going to be over.” Ben shivers, the shudder passing through his frame and then through Jango’s, trapped in the wake of this – this nightmare behind Ben’s gaze, locked up in his head like a cage he can’t ever escape.

“Then came Order Sixty-Six, and our _vod_ , our _friends_ , the most loyal men some of us had ever known – they turned on us without blinking.”

 _It wasn’t an inhibitor_ , Ben had said. But he wouldn’t have known that, not when it happened. So what had happened – they would have been blindsided by betrayal, and they would have _believed_ it was betrayal, and not – not whatever really happened.

Jango feels sick. And part of him knows, knows – that some other iteration of himself – he would have found _justice_ in that.

He knows his own morality can’t exactly be counted on, but indoctrinated child soldiers born and bred was – well, it was a fucked up something, but something like _that_ , taking away even their own personal will, turning them into little better but _droids_ -

He presses the inner edge of his hand against his mouth, buckling himself down and pulling his shit together, because this wasn’t about _him_.

Ben stares out at nothing, and he just – keeps going.

“Some of us died quick – I doubt they even realized…. but the rest.” He blinks slowly. “We died hard. We died _hard_ , but we died. We died by the thousands. Every jedi they could reach in the field. Every last one in the Temple-“ His voice wavers, breaks.

 _No_ , Jango, thinks making that connection too quickly as Ben’s ragged breathing turns to a low sound bitten down in his throat as his composure crumples, and he reaches up to cover his face. _No, no no_.

Ben struggles, claws it all back down – that grief, that pain, that memory –

How much, Jango wonders, how much of it did he not simply know – how much of it was he forced to _watch_?

 _Too much_ , he thinks.

“You weren’t alive to see it, but your vengeance was… absolute.” Ben informs him lifelessly.

Jango shakes his head, as if his ears were full of water, unable to comprehend.

Not wanting to comprehend.

“And the Republic just…” He doesn’t believe it. He has no love for the Republic, but that order coming down, it can’t have come from the _Jetiise_ , so how could it have-

“You think the Republic survived us?” Ben cracks bitterly. “You don’t – Jango, it _all_ came down. That was the _plan_ , that was why the war was _orchestrated_ , why it all happened – the Jedi Order, the Republic, it was all… part of the plan. They took everything from the inside out, pushing the galaxy to the brink so they could turn it into their new and _glorious_ Empire. We _lost_. We lost everything.”

“The plan?” Jango repeats snappishly, tracking it back. “ _Whose_ plan?” He’s heard everything, but understanding it, reconciling himself to believe it -

Ben meets his gaze, blue-grey eyes roiling and cagey and brimming with cold. “If I am to be believed?” He bites out flatly. “The Sith.”

He lets that sit.

He watches Jango, and Jango…

He lets that sit.

It doesn’t sit easy.

It takes him a minute. It takes him a few minutes. It all churns and whirls through his thoughts, snarling and spitting and bubbling up under his skin, making him restless, making him want to fight just to _get it out_ –

He pushes to his feet and paces, fighting himself and his instincts, holding on tightly to the point of it all –

Which wasn’t about what he felt about this, about any of it. It was about Ben. It was about whether or not he was going to trust his best friend. Whether or not he was going to help him.

Though he’s dangerously unsure what kind of help Ben really needs.

“Alright, say its – real.” Jango struggles, really struggles;

But it would be easier for it to be real, for him, than to accept that his best friend was worse than a little unbalanced – was genuinely _delusional_. He refuses to accept that.

He doesn’t want it to be true.

So… the impossible then.

Which is that all of this wasn’t theoretical, wasn’t a story or some figmentation of a broken mind. That this – _happened_ , somehow.

“How does this-“ He gestures to encompass Ben Naasade, and his part in all of it, “ – work?”

Ben brushes back the errant locks of hair falling into his eyes again, blue-grey eyes unwavering, holding hard to a fragile hope, faced with Jango’s – potential acceptance.

“How it…works,” Ben says carefully, a little more composed himself, “ is that Obi-Wan Kenobi is _not_ my son, though I admit that presently it would be simpler and perhaps _saner_ to allow others to believe him so.”

It takes Jango a hot contentious minute of broiling frustration to connect the dots.

_If you had never met me-_

  * _Obi-Wan Kenobi is_ not _my son_.



_Naasade_.

No One.

 _I walked away from one life in the hopes of making another_. Ben had told him, the first time they met, and Jango made a less than honorable impression of himself by asking a man why he’d cast his identity aside. _I couldn’t do that and remain who I was._

 _I gave my name away_.

Damningly clever, telling a lie by telling the truth.

Jango huffs, feeling waveringly close to overwhelmed as he absorbs - some real fucking _jetiise_ banthashite, which he hates, by the way – and he moves back to the bench, dropping his ass back down beside Ben, a fight still snarling in his chest.

“ _Ka’ra_ fucking – you’re – wait, he’s - does _he_ know?” Jango demands.

“No.” Ben replies simply. “No, he does not.”

Jango sits a minute, head swimming, and lets the _jetii’s_ carefully measured breathing lull his own back in line.

“How’d you do it?” Jango wonders aloud, still…. processing, still trying to reconcile one thing with another, confusion bristling against anger needling through doubt and all colored over with the stubborn determination to _just fucking deal with it_.

“I don’t know.” Ben says, voice drawn and spent for the retelling, spreading his hands to accentuate his own lack of understanding. “It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t something I thought was possible. To be perfectly honest… I thought I had finally gone mad. To be _painfully_ honest, I’m not always convinced I haven’t.”

There’s something more than a little desperate in that last statement. Something desperate in all of it, he thinks, but that was…

Jango makes a choice.

“I believe you.” He offers the other man, his conviction leaving no question as to his support.

Ben had done this once, for him – offered faith where none was expected – hell, at the time, where none was _wanted_ – but he’d needed it. He hadn’t realized how much, but he’d needed that faith, he’d needed to be believed in.

And Ben had done it – perhaps out of cold calculation, trying to prevent his nightmare from recurring, perhaps even _spitefully_ ; but _why_ he’d done it, the Mandalorian reconciles, mattered far less to Jango than the man he himself became – and didn’t become, he shivers now – because of it.

The look Ben gives him hurts, as does the way the _jetii_ bows over his knees after, head dropping low over knitted hands as if in prayer – relief and gratitude gutting him almost as much as rejection might have.

Jango clenches his jaw, deeply uncomfortable.

“Why can’t you ever make things easy?” He mutters, glowering at the wall.

Ben’s shaking shoulders break into huffs of weak laughter, turning his face to catch Jango’s eye with the faintest of wry grins, a light in those blue-grey that settles a lot of the _Mand’alor’s_ uncertainty.

As for the rest – as heavy and fucked up as the weight of this – _nightmare_ , was – Jango feels a little easier understanding that there was... little worse they could find in each other. They knew the monsters beside them now. Which means – if he didn’t lose his fucking nerve once he actually has a chance to think about this – that they needed no more conditions on the trust between them.

And Jango… he hasn’t trusted anyone unconditionally in a very long time.

“I have a predilection to doing the right thing.” Ben replies with slightly drawn cheekiness. “The right thing is rarely easy.” He sits up and leans back as Jango scoffs, settling his shoulder against his _vods_.

“I think you just enjoy being a pain in the ass.” The brunette mutters.

They fall quiet, Jango wishing his thoughts would too – but possibilities burn in his mind, darker and darker flickers of could-have-beens, questions bubbling up and bursting through the forefront, each as scattered as the last.

“Did we ever meet?” He asks, bothered by it, but finding it one of the easiest things he could ask. He already knows he died, and he can guess how, if a _jetii_ killed him.

“Ah, yes.” Ben replies.

Jango nods.

“How’d that go?”

“We had an exceedingly veiled conversation under extremely suspicious circumstances, I’m fairly certain you undressed me with your eyes, there was an energetic fight in the rain until you kicked me off a platform over the ocean, and then led me on a chase which was actually a trap and into what was very nearly my execution.”

“Hell of a first impression.” Jango grunts.

Ben cracks a laugh, head tipping back against the bulkhead. “It was.” He agrees, a wealth of turmoil under those words that Jango senses and leaves alone.

He’s not sure how much more he can stand to hear in one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: okay, posting this before i keep picking it apart, or it'll be _days_.
> 
> Commentary: Some of you need to _chill_ about the relationships.The Desert Storm is Gen and will remain Gen. Should i decide to change that, i will inform you, and the tags will reflect a maturity rating change. So, while this means you might see some kissing and some suggestive content, I am not writing smut here. 
> 
> Furthurmore: some of you need to learn the differences between romance, lust and physical intimacy, because these are not mutually exchangeable concepts. You should probably also think about the fact that friendship and sex are not mutually exclusive. A lot of you need to learn that if _doing-the-do_ significantly changes your relationship with someone, then your relationship probably needed a better foundation first.   
> How you feel emotionally is not directly linked to how you feel physically. There should be, however, a direct link between trust and intimacy - and let me tell you, _trust really needs to come first._  
>  I normally just keep writing and let you guys eventually figure shit out on your own, but i dislike waking up to see hissy fits in my comments, and i am _cranky_ first thing in the morning.
> 
> So get this: **TEENSY BIT OF A SPOILER HERE** \- Ben and Jango? Not a romantic couple. That doesn't mean they won't have sex, and I have _reasons_ for that. Part of it is I feel a terribly dissappointing lack of queers in space, which is ridiculous given the fucking setting, and there is a _need._  
>  Part of it has to do with where their respective trauma's line up, and how trauma affects a persons ability to have relationships immensely. I want Ben to have a relationship, and while Jango isn't necessarily my end goal, he represents a very important part of how Ben, in his progress, can actually reach the point of having a more romantic relationship.  
> And it works, because these two are real friends and they can actually trust each other to not fuck them up even more while they figure shit out.  
> BuY wHy Can't hIS roMAntIc PaRtner FIX him? - don't even hit me with this. If you have a _genuine_ inquiry about relationships, hit my email and maybe i'll respond with some helpful information, but if i see this is the comments, i will start deleting.  
>  **END SPOILERY STUFF.**
> 
> I enjoy seeing your thoughts/ reactions/ theories/ _that bit with the holonovel snipets_ *mwah, delightful!*/ etc in the comments. It makes my day. It gives me the energy to keep cranking out chapters when i am otherwise completely wiped out from work or whatever else is going on in my life. Some days, it's what gets me out of bed. Getting crap along the lines of 'well i don't like thi's and' you shouldn't put it in there' and 'whyyyy do people have to be gay' and 'this is such a narrative mistake - '  
> As you can see - i will _go off._


	38. Chapter 38

Bo-Katan keeps one eye on her _buir’s_ ship, impatiently waiting him and their resident _jetii_ out. She has updates for them, and she’d like it if they acted quickly on it. The young woman understands that what Fett has to tell Naasade sucks, but they were at war here, and war shouldn’t wait on one man.

Except for the _Mand’alor_.

Which it was.

Gritting her teeth, Bo-Katan turns back to the game she’s playing with a handful of equally stymied commandos and pilots and almost misses the flicker of movement – life finally appearing.

Her back tenses and her stomach sours, and she shares a grimacing look with the crew settled around the munitions crate, all of them of equal mind – the _jetii_ looked like crap. The _Mand’alor_ looked almost worse.

She gets that having his home bombed is a hellish kind of agony – but he was hardly alone in that.

She tries not to think about how quietly kind he’d been to her, though, after her – after Duke Kryze died, even when she gave him the worst of her temper. Any other Mandalorian would have decked her at least once – but he’d just remained steadfastly unperturbed, and did stupidly empathetic things like make sure her food was served before Fett started smothering it in red sauce, or making sure she was around when he provided updates via his padawan on Satine’s location and status, so she never had to actually deign to plead for them.

“ _Mand’alor_ , join us!” One of the pilots in black and silver calls, waving them over.

Fett’s expression is locked down tight, letting her know that whatever was going on in his head, it really wasn’t good. A game would probably do them some good, Bo-Katan thinks. They make their way over, her _buir’s_ gaze flickering across the crew and the munitions crate they were using as a table, hastily covered with a laundered cape, and an entire bushel of dried peppers piled in the middle, some of the players sweaty and red faced.

Naasade looks passingly intrigued, in spite of how tightly he was holding himself and the pinched creases around his eyes. “Alright, _this_ I’m not familiar with.”

“Oh, _jetii_ , then you have to play!”

“Play what, exactly?” The cinnamon haired man inquires, taking a seat quickly – if she weren’t watching him like a shriek-hawk, she might have missed that little tremor in his hand as he did so.

 _Buir_ sighs, mouth twisting at the corner in resigned impatience, and drops down as well. “ _Nadala’lat_.” He mutters.

Blue-grey eyes furrow in puzzlement. “Hot-Tongue?” He translates roughly.

“It’s a game of truth – unfamiliar _verde_ play it to get to know each other.” A zabrak pilot in Clan Ward green and yellow explains hastily, eager. “You go around the ring asking questions. The asker can call on anyone in the ring; whoever they call on has to answer truthfully. If you hesitate, anyone in the ring can call it bantha-shite, and you eat a pepper. If you refuse to answer, you eat a pepper. If your answer really _is_ bantha-shite, and somebody around you knows better and calls you on it –“

“You eat a pepper.” The _jetii_ finishes, amused. “Is this actually a game you can win?”

Bo-Katan snorts. “If you get the chance to play long enough?” She answers. “Yeah. If you vomit, you’re out. If you tap out, you’re out. You win if you’re the last one still answering questions.”

“So by being utterly honest.”

“If you think _Mando’ade_ ask questions you _want_ to answer with utter honesty, you are mistaken.” An older Skirata fellow snickers.

“If you win, you’re either honest, shameless, a very good liar – or you have an iron stomach.”

The game was usually also played with everyone drinking black beer, but being on duty – and, Bo-Katan thinks, now in the presence of a reformed alcoholic – no one here was drinking anything but tea, water, and caf. Well, maybe the old gal next to her – that canteen certainly smelled like paint stripper when she cracked it for a sip – but the rest were clean.

“Or all of the above.” Naasade muses, a smirk twitching at his lips in the kind of slapped on easy humor that could cover up quite a lot. No one here was going to call him on it, today of all days, though. Even if _buir’s_ golden-brown eyes pinch at the corner, recognizing it for the cheap veneer that it was.

“Or all of the above.” The players agree.

They play, no one really counting rounds, the questions very light all of a sudden – easy questions, the kind used to get new players to loosen up.

“Bo-Katan! Ever blown yourself up?”

“Yes.” She answers dryly.

“Skirata! Longest you’ve ever been drunk?”

“If I was that drunk, how the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“Naasade!” They _almost_ don’t flinch, using that name. “Bravest man you’ve ever met?”

Bo-Katan almost rolls her eyes – she knows where that kind of questioning is trying to lead. She occupies her hands instead, absently polishing the _beskar_ knife Fett had given her.

“Bail Organa.” The _jetii_ outs quickly.

“What?!” Everyone eyes he _Mand’alor_ , sitting right there beside him. Even Fett looks disgruntled, and the _jetii_ just smiles ruefully.

“Who the fuck is Bail Organa?” Someone asks, not calling out a name like he ought and out of turn besides.

“Husband of the Queen of Alderaan.” Ben replies quickly anyhow.

“But how is he-“

“Hey – play by the rules!” Someone chucks a canteen, and their intended target ducks.

They leave off the _jetii_ for a bit, needling one of the younger pilots instead, and then a middle-aged gal just married into Clan Betoya.

“Bo-Katan! Longest you’ve ever been tortured?”

There are a couple groans, mutterings about a low question – but she genuinely believes the speaker was a _di’kut_ who forgot she’d been in a _Kyr’stad_ Indoctrination Camp. Bo-Katan turns her bucket, checking the chrono on the data-com display. No one calls bantha-shite in the four seconds it takes her to do so. “Two years, five months, a week, three days and counting.” She replies, deadpan. She cuts a cool glance around the ring, and gestures to her _buir_. “Which is how long I’ve been stuck with this _shabuir_.”

They laugh, and she glances at Fett, and his golden-brown gaze is creased with grudging humor at her wit. She looks away, telling herself she shouldn’t feel so _pleased_ over that.

“Bralor! Ever been poisoned?”

“Intentionally or accidentally?”

“Naasade! Ever shared a bed with Fett?”

A cinnamon crow twitches, smirk tugging at his lips. “Yes.” He replies.

Someone slaps the crate, but its the asker they point at. “No no no! You can’t win the bet on that, that’s too vague!” They shout. “Naasade! Have you had _sex_ with Jango Fett?”

The Mandalorian _jetii_ grins, plucks a pepper from the pile, and eats it.

There is _outrage_ , and the next question goes to the _Mand’alor_ – right in the same vein.

Golden-brown eyes flicker to catch a merry blue-grey gaze, and, exactly the same kind of bastard that he is, he takes a pepper. Everyone groans.

“Bo-Katan! You –“

“That is my _buir_.” She growls, cutting them off. “Ask me that question and I _will_ stab you.”

Fett nudges Naasade, a pleased smirk on his tan face. “She actually calls me her _buir_ now. In public.”

Naasade smiles, and Bo-Katan scowls, glowering at the both of them.

“Jaban! Does your fiancé know exactly how many lovers you’ve left behind?”

The poor man barely has his mouth open before the entire crew is calling bantha-shite, and there is no defense he can offer to that. He’s already sweating in rivulets, unfortunate liar that he is, and he has to take a deep gulp of air before he manages another pepper. He looks queasy, and he’s got a _vod_ who keeps whispering questions to other players. Bo-Katan pegs him for a puker, but she also pegs that when he does, he’s going to puke right on that _vod’s_ boots. If he’s feeling really vindictive, she thinks critically, he’d go for the _vod’s_ bucket, not his boots.

Her turn comes around, and she turns on the _jetii_. His gaze goes sharp and cutting for a moment, wary of a particularly vicious assault from her corner, but Bo-Katan figures he’s had a rough enough day. She’ll just rib him a bit.

“Naasade, any marriages under _your_ belt?” She asks.

His brows rise, fingers stroking his beard. “I’ve lost count.”

“ _What_?” She snaps, taken aback – and she’s not the only one. She glances unintentionally to Fett, who just rolls his eyes, arms crossed.

“Is he gonna explain that?” Someone whispers indiscreetly, glancing nervously at the _Mand’alor_ , who looks just as ruffled.

Naasade chuckles, pushing an errant lock of hair back from his face, and his humor is more genuine this time. Wonder of wonders, the man appears to be relaxing. “A great portion of a Jedi’s duties include conduction of ceremonies. Part of our education encompasses the study of marriage rites, of which there are… thousands upon thousands. It’s a running joke in the Temple how often we accidentally perform one.” His voice smooths out with the ease of educating, his hands becoming more expressive as he speaks with enthusiasm. “In some systems it’s as simple as sharing a plate for a meal; in a few, using someone’s personal name is akin to a proposal, and if they use yours in return, it indicates acceptance; crossing a river together – or a fire – is a popular one; exchanging personal items – it really does go _on_. Most of them require witnesses – some of them require a _lack_ of witnesses – in tight communal societies, going off alone together is generally akin to a declaration of intent if not a done deal.” He shrugs, plainly amused at having caught their attention.

“And I thought a Mandalorian marriage was simple.” Someone grumbles good naturedly.

It rather _was_ – you found yourself a crowd, bound your wrists together, declared yourselves, and that was that. There was usually one hell of a party after that. It was traditional to have approval from a senior member of your clan first, but any marriage was legal so long as the witnesses would sign to have seen it.

The questions take a different tone, after that, curiosity spilling forth;

“Is it true _jetiise_ can read minds?”

“That depends on the mind and the jedi.” Eyes roll, and he explains; “ For example, I’m no natural telepath, and Mandalorian stubbornness is more than a fond quirk – your cultural upbringing encourages a strong will and mental discipline. It makes mental intrusion and manipulation particularly difficult. Even natural telepaths have attested to that. Any jedi could probably _try_ , but it would take great skill for such an attempt to go unnoticed, and even that is not enough to guarantee they would be entirely successful. The mind is not a book from which pages and pictures can simply be pulled. Minds are _messy_.”

Someone sniggers. “I know a few I wouldn’t dare go traipsing in.” They grin, clapping the red-faced, promiscuous Jaban on the back hard enough to make them cough. “Right?”

Jaban covers his face with one hand, and Bo-Katan rolls her eyes.

The _jetii’s_ turn comes up, and he ruthlessly goes after the youngest pilot, inquiring if they’ve ever fantasized about the _Mand’alor_ naked. With the _Mand’alor_ right there and his face like it was carved from stone, there’s nothing for the poor kid to do but bite a pepper. His eyes water immediately.

Bo-Katan’s adoptive father tries the same tactic on a baby-faced young Bralor pilot, but the girl looks back coolly. “Oh yes sir I have.” She replies without missing a beat, cutting the cinnoman-haired warrior beside him a quick up-down look of appreciative evaluation. He looks long-sufferingly amused, and half the group cackles at the young woman’s brass.

“ _Mand’alor_ , is it true you kidnapped his – _verd’ibir_?”

Bo-Katan looks at Fett, wondering if he _really_ just went around aggressively abducting other people’s teenagers. She’s heard he trained the little jedi brat some, but this is the first time she’s heard it called a _kidnapping_.

Though she probably should have suspected something – how exactly would that training have occurred, otherwise? _Jetiise_ didn’t exactly go jaunting about the galaxy with bounty hunters. Or Mandalorians.

“I didn’t _kidnap_ him.” Fett snaps. “I won by combat the right to train him for a month.”

“You ambushed me.” Naasade remarks blandly. “And I was censured for that, by the way.”

“He returned safe and sound.”

“He returned with bruised bones, if I recall, because _someone_ pushed him off a transport.”

“I kept him from being _shot_.”

“For which I am grateful.” The jetii replies primly, and Bo-Katan’s _buir_ glower at him, unable to win. She studies them, noting the rigidness has slipped out of their forms, the dread undercurrent out of their eyes. Enough so, she thinks, that they can be getting back to work.

She takes a sip of her tea, bitter with the citrusy _behot_ additive, rolls her shoulders, and stands. Her lips are a little numb from the few pepper’s she’s eaten, but the heat on her tongue is more pleasant than painful.

“If you two want to settle that on the way,” She remarks pointedly, “ I have a briefing for you.”

That earns Bo-Katan her _buir’s_ attention, quickly and with earnest focus. He nods and rises, bumping shoulders with Naasade as he does, the _jetii_ a little slower on the uptake, still paying attention to the game, which moves on quickly. Bo-Katan gets a few impatient looks from some of the more senior individuals for getting to the _Mand’alor_ first. She meets them unrepentantly, and then turns to walk by his side, dismissing the implication that she has no right to be first in line.

They don’t know it yet – refuse to acknowledge it, most likely – but she is more than Fett’s heir in clan. She _will_ be the next _Mand’alor_.

“ _Me’vaar ti gar_?” Her _buir_ asks sharply, demanding a sit-rep once they’re far enough away that the laughter is little more than background noise, and the eyes stop trailing them so intensely.

“Mandalore is stable for now. Mandallia however, is deteriorating. Intel can’t discern if it’s _Kyr’stad_ versus us, or if the _Kyr’stad – Haat Mando’ade_ tension has just sparked off an independent clan war. Either way…. Things there need to be settled. They could use your presence.” The young soldier reports sharply. “ _Kyr’stad_ seems to be converging most of their forces on Krownest, since you’ve sent them scattering from Concord Dawn, but no one can seem to pin down Tor Vizla.” Her voice turns low and she grits over his name, fists clenching. She can’t help it. Even if she divorced Adonai Kryze’s parentage, he was still… things hadn’t always been that way between them. And what Vizla had done to Clan Kryze, to her sister….

Bo-Katan wears plenty of gold on her armor.

“And Satine has dropped out of sight again.” She adds bitterly. On the one hand, her sister was likely safer that way, on the other, Bo-Katan had no way of _knowing_ if she was actually safe.

“Obi-Wan will keep her safe.” Naasade says, as if it were absolute. Fett’s golden-brown eyes glance over, give him an odd, indiscernible look that Bo-Katan can’t interpret.

“We’ll go to Mandallia, then.” The _Mand’alor_ decrees. “You’ll come.” He adds, looking to her. “Rav Bralor can handle what’s left of the operations here.”

“I’ll see to it.” Bo-Katan nods sharply, turning on heel to let Bralor know and then prep her ship. Her rations are running low – she must have miscounted on her last supply-up. He grabs her by the shoulder, pulling her to a stop, and Bo-Katan looks up, silver-green eyes meeting golden-brown. He makes sure she locks gazes with him, and then he nods. Her throat tightens, and she swallows against a feeling she refuses to admit is pride, seeping through her chest like an unseen glow, warm and sustaining and too much to bear.

But that is, in fact, the look in his eyes, and he isn’t denying it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: Okay, so i completely made this game up, but fair warning to anyone who tries to play a version of it: please be careful. Play with like, jalapenos or chili peppers or pabalanos, and not, like, ghost peppers or california reapers. Nobody wants anybody ending up in the hospital. 
> 
> Mando'a:  
> Mevaar ti gar? - Lit: How are you? Among soldiers, asking for a situation report.


	39. Chapter 39

“You should have left me to the venom-mites, I might have had better chances.” Satine complains with mock offense, limping out of the _Lighthawk_ and observing the public hanger warily. There had been malfunctions in the heating and cooling systems during their – poor landing – and some of their medical supplies – including the bacta – had spoiled.

The gashes on her legs she got when he gallantly carried her to safety – and then tripped and _dropped_ her - will probably scar, but Mandalorians don’t mind scars so much. And the gashes were far preferable to the venom-mites, really. Sha’me had been bitten, and the welts were brutal – the accompanied pain and venom-induced delirium more so.

“I _said_ I was sorry.” Obi-Wan mutters, standing a few yards away with his arms crossed stiffly and his focus utterly elsewhere, his back facing her and the ship. Satine can feel the muscles around her eyes tightening. Her attempt at teasing had utterly failed to take his mind off the attack on the temple. Satine could hardly blame him – she knew what it felt like, to see your home brought to ruin. They’d discovered that bit of news days ago and days too late, and both he and Padawan Orikhid, left to their own thoughts too long, seeped into irretractable tension, and then refused to acknowledge it.

Jedi could make it damnably difficult to argue with them, at times, and Satine just – didn’t know if she could handle _this_ , on top of everything else.

As if sensing her thoughts – or more likely her mounting stress – Obi-Wan turns to look at her. “I’m sorry my mind has been – elsewhere.” He says softly. “I know we have problems enough – _Satine!_ ” One moment he’s speaking to her, and the next Satine feels herself yanked backwards –

~*~

-she slams into the ground, a tree stump of a boot coming down on her chest, and Asajj would howl her rage if she could _breathe_.

Pushing the Yinchorri back to the planet had been a hell of a fight, and establishing a blockade was proving to be more so. Two of the Judicial Carriers had come down, dragging the fight to the ground as well as in the air. She, her master, and the Jinn-Jeisel pair had come down in support of the 8787’s Peacekeepers. Master Windu had given them a very simple order: stay alive long enough for them to end this. She didn’t know exactly what the plan was, but – and this was pretty big, for her – she trusted him to see it through, to have her back, and her masters.

The Yinchorri are massive, but Asajj has fought bigger, stronger – and most certainly smarter opponents than these ugly brutes – before. It’s the cortoisis armor that keeps getting in her way, causing her lightsabers to gutter and deactivate should the alloy contact the beam. Scrabbling at the boot, her fingers find a seam, and Asajj digs in. Her fingernails do nothing, but she clenches her fist around the lightsaber she’s still got a hold of, thumbs the ignition, and shoves the hilt right into the gap.

The Yinchorri roars, staggering back –

~*~

He staggers, pulling his lightsaber in close to his body, turning carefully, trying to shoulder his way past the panicked just trying to get away so that he can find those that mean harm. The situation on Mandallia had escalated too quickly – and Bo-Katan’s intel had been garbled for a reason; there _was_ an independent clan war firing up, but it was being fueled by guerrilla-style _Kyr’stad - Haat Mando’ade_ conflicts here. Everyone was blaming everyone else, and old grudges – well, Mandalorians were better at forgetting than forgiving. All it took was a few reminders. The planet was rife with the oily chill of malice and fear, soured and enhanced by the crowds.

Jango’s mere presence had seemed to calm matters, various sides wanting to be heard, and hear what the _Mand’alor_ had to say. A public court, of sorts, had packed the streets, and that gathering had turned into a riot, but fuck if anyone knew who’d actually started the damn thing.

Now, if Ben could actually find Jango in the mess… but there was too much motion in every direction, including up. Jet-pack thrusters and blaster-fire and shock-grenades adding a confusing whirl of heat and noise to the violence. Some were out fighting to kill, some were just fighting to get out. Ben keeps an eye on the mandos in flight above him, wishing Fett’s armor was more distinguishable at a distance, but doesn’t risk taking to the air himself. He’s not sure how well his belief in Force Structuring would hold when his belief on where and when he right now is getting rather thin. It’s only the lack of white armor that keeps him remembering which conflict he’s fighting.

Ben kicks one mando off another before the former manages to bash the latter’s bucket in, and he doesn’t even know what side they’re on – either of them. The downed mando rolls and rocks to their feet, two hands on their bucket as they sway. One drops, reaching for a blaster.

“ _Don’t_ -!” Ben warns.

~*~

The warning comes just in time, like a bucket of ice dropped down his neck, cold and oily and abrupt. He wraps the Force around Satine and shoves her back into the ship rather gracelessly, and two slug bolts explode against the durasteel floor in a shatter of fragments.

He’ll apologize later.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi!” Satine shrieks from the top of the ramp, having scrambled into a ready crouch, her plasma buckler open in front of her body.

 _No. No._ He thinks, even as his lightsaber ignites and he whirls, throwing his senses across the hanger, the other bays, the balconies, incoming and outgoing ships-

 _Where are you_?

If blasters were uncivilized, slug-throwers were atrocious. Pneumatic weapons that fired hard metal pellets which tore through everything in their path. At least blaster-shot was _clean_.

They were rudimentary weapons, often the product of more rudimentary worlds, but they did hold one nasty advantage – he couldn’t deflect them with his lightsaber. He could _melt_ them, but then there was hot slag to contend with. Satine’s buckler might stop them, but if it hit just right the force of a sniper-shot like that could break her arm.

Someone came prepared for a jedi.

Obi-Wan is torn. He should leap into the ship, take off and leave – but Orikhid and Vesh were still getting supplies. He didn’t want to abandon them.

Sha’me appears behind Satine, her color still off, her skin sweat-clammy, but she locks eyes with Obi-Wan and therein lies an indomitable strength of will. She puts a hand on Satine’s shoulder, holding her back in the protection of the vessel.

 _Think_ , Obi-Wan.

He glowers out at the hanger, danger a cold prickle along his spine, and an idea occurs to him.

He couldn’t stop a slug with his lightsaber, but he might just be able to do something with the Force. He considers the size of his ship, parked in the bay with it’s worse for wear hull, and the partitioned layout of the public hanger. He’s used the Force as a barrier before, and shaped his own physical interaction with the world on it, but using it like a physical shield…

Sian had tricks for using Force Structuring to manipulate objects, rather than the objects themselves, but Obi-Wan doesn’t have her knack for it, nor her practice, not on a larger scale.

Still, only one real way to find out.

He draws his lightsaber closer to his body, holding it up in a straight line – a focus, not a defense. His heartbeat drums, and the Force teases around him, grounding and lifting and balanced, like the three crystals in the blade.

He pictures a dome, surrounding him, surrounding his ship, shimmering in the air but as impenetrable as _beskar_.

 _Crack_!

Obi-Wan sucks in a breath and opens his eyes, and watches the pulverized remains of a slug clatter to the ground not a yard from his face.

 _If I had failed, I would have been dead_.

Trust in the Force indeed.

“Woah.” Even Sha’me sounds impressed, and Obi-Wan looks back, grinning. Body still braced forward as a pillar that will not falter.

“I think I’ve got this. We can wait them out till the others come back.” He nods confidently, pride brimming up inside at his success.

Sha’me lifts her hairless green brows at him, but sinks back in exhausted relief, nodding in respect. Satine’s silver-blue gaze is locked on the pulverized remains of the metal slug, as she hesitantly steps down the ramp towards him.

“ _Di’kut_!” Her gaze cuts to him, sharp and burning with anger, with worry and fear and relief. She steps up behind him and reaches out, needing to touch him to make sure he wasn’t an illusion.

That had been close, and it would have been too cruel, Obi-Wan thinks, wincing at the thought, for her have to watch another of her loved ones die in front of her. 

“How do you always manage to surprise me?” She huffs out in a whisper, fingers curling into the back of his collar, crinkling silk and brushing skin and that is distracting-

He smirks, he can’t help it. “Well, I suppose I –“

Heat and danger lances past his face, scoring his bucket with a shriek of metal of metal, but the blood that spatters his visor – _the blood that spatters his visor_ -

~*~

Blood drips down her face, down her neck, beading and rolling. Sian snarls, locking her knees and refusing to buckle, her arms crossed, one braced over the other over her head. The grooved edges of her cortoisis bracers cut into her skin, and she bleeds. The plasma buckler is the only thing keeping her opponent from smashing her head in with his heavy armored guantlets.

 _Obi-Wan was really right about needing sleeves_! Sian thinks, growling low in her throat in effort, her mind going odd places in the middle of a pitched battle, but, well, better that than focusing on how much it _really_ , really _hurt_.

Th Yinchorri roars his anger, and Sian roars hers right back, sharp teeth and everything, screaming from low in her stomach.

She wins – she doesn’t expect to, but she wins. A fiery, eerie green lightsaber bursts right through the turtle-heads neck, and his head is promptly removed from his shoulders. Sian flinches at the death in the force, one cold blossom of it among many, an oily, dark miasma in the air – violence and pain, strife and suffering. She could gag on it, the stench of blood already thick in her nose.

She sways, stepping back, her arms and shoulders aching, her one forearm radiating sharp, tingly agony in a way that suggests the bone may have cracked under the force of the Yinchorri’s meaty, swinging fists.

“Thanks.” She nods to Asajj, whose expression is severe and whose mismatched lightsabers are raised in such a threatening, forward aggression that Sian can’t help but think it would take a kriff-ton of daring to take her on. The dathomiri padawan may only be a few years older than her, but Asajj Ventress was a _warrior_.

“Where’s your _lightsaber_?” The older girl rasps harshly.

Sian looks around, sucking in air and trying to focus on the world outside of herself, letting her exhaustion, letting her pain and he emotions sink beneath her purpose, distancing them from her mind, her experience, and leaning into the Force. It helps, even as chaotic as the Force felt right now. “I dropped it.” She admits, though she can hear the crystal calling out, the moment she turns her attention in that direction.

Asajj keeps with her as she makes her way towards it, calling it to her hand once she can actually see it. Half-way up a rise, they can see just how messy it all is, the pcokets of destruction, the pockets if fighting, 8787’s peacekeeper uniforms by far the most cohesive, but dwarfed by the dull bronze of the armored Yinchorri.

Asajj nudges her with an elbow-

~*~

Someone grabs his elbow, and Ben almost cracks his fist off Bo-Katan’s bucket before he registers that the grip is not restraining, not an attack. He blinks at her, as she _literally_ dropped out of the sky.

“ _Do something, you dini’la shabuir_!” She shouts into her comms, anger and a thread of panic racing across crackling static. “ _Where’s the jetii who tore ships from the sky_?!”

“That’s not what a jedi is meant to do-“

“ _Gar da’gar mando’ade_?” She demands, accusation digging into him far more painfully than her grip.

Ben grits his teeth, seething inside his helmet. He was having a hard enough time keeping himself separate from that potent, writhing violence in the Force, and he regrets using it that way, regrets causing death in such a manner-

 _Are you a Mandalorian or not_?

 _This is the choice we make_ , he reminds himself. The line they have to walk, to be both Mandalorian and Jedi, and he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know _in this moment_ which side of it he should be on-

Horror surges through him, punching through his chest and Ben gasps, drowning in the unexpected tide of-

That’s his padawan. That’s his _padawan_ he’s feeling-

Ben reels, one hand coming up to his bucket, _what could have_ …?

 _‘SATINE!!!_ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: Yesterday was such a good thinking day. Some ideas finally crystalized for me, filling in some future plot lines that were otherwise very vague swathes. And. And! I finally actually started writing the original work i've been building in my head for ages. So, good things.
> 
> Then, of course, there was this chapter. Which had me screaming into the electrostatic void of my word document as I was writing due to the fact that I am creeping up on 100k words for this arc and _I keep adding complications to the plot_. Do some of you recall way back in the beginning when I wrapped up arcs in ~ 15k words and hit Remembrance and I got _very concerned_ that 30k words in one work was pushing it?   
> Those were the days.


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some graphic-ness, blood and injury.

_Not her. Not her. Not her_.

Ben takes a faltering step back, then another. Sounds bursts around his head, Bo-Katan shouting at him, perhaps, but nothing outside his head makes much sense right now.

He doesn’t know what _happened_ , all he has is his padawans pain, and that one ringing cry of his soul, so intense it crossed Force knew what distance to reach him, screamed out in the Force.

 _She can’t die. She can’t die. Not again_.

The Mandalorian jedi is panicking, breath coming tight and fast, a numbness creeping through his limbs at odds with the sheer magnitude of _too much_ tearing through his chest.

Bo-Katan is a blur in front of him, arms waving in agitation, his lightsaber in her grasp – he didn’t realize he’d dropped it, but his hands were on his bucket, trying to press everything back– trying to –

Something strikes him, a burst of heat-light and pain he can’t really feel, barely registers. Bo-Katan whips her focus up, raises her blaster and shoots the offender.

“Satine.” Ben utters, and Bo-Katan must hear it through the inter-linked comms, because her entire body goes rigid as she fires, and fires, clearing back some space around them before dropping his lightsaber at his feet, grabbing him by the underside of his bucket and _wrenching_.

“ _What happened to my sister?!”_ The snarling, desperate demand is a crackling roar around his ears, and Ben can’t – think –

_Why can’t I save them?_

_Why can’t I save them?_

Blaster-fire bullets down from above, striking pavement, scoring beskar’gam, and Bo-Katan is once more forced to defend him.

Duke Kryze, the Temple, Satine – why couldn’t he _save_ them? Even the Medical Station, the Pandemic – why, why was it, that no matter how hard he tried, things just seemed to be getting _worse_? All his successes seeming so small and insignificant in scale –

 _I can’t keep losing_ , _I can’t bear it_ –

Cold creeps in, hanging heavy and low in the Force like smoke, a pervasive stain all around him, present and elusive, pressing up against his skin and constantly escaping his grasp. It curls up all around him, crooning like mocking laughter, seeming to wrap up around his throat, press down on his chest. He felt like if he opened his mouth, it would crawl inside and-

 _No_.

Ben lashes out, stoking his inner force into an inferno that flickers around him like ghostly fire, driving back the insidious touch of darkness trying to seep through all his scars.

He drops his hands from his bucket and stands, not having noticed falling to his knees. The world blurs to light and shadow and color, sharp in contrast and more impressionistic than real, and he can see it – that malicious web threaded through all of this, more than destruction, more than pain and violence, rage and fear – deliberate malice, dark intent, the threads of ruin and downfall.

Ben _burns_.

 _You are not_ , he thinks viciously, his sense of self a shimmer of blackened, smoldering gold touched by eerie green and an edge of coppery red-violet, _the only monster here_.

He lashes out, racing along the ties and tripwires and malevolence of it, twining himself around it, through it, chasing it across the battlefield and riot, across deadly lines of fire and murderous intents, sinking himself into it like the fangs of a serpent. It _writhes_ -

_And you do not get to win!_

Ben _fights_. Fights the pull of consumption and the driving, snarling cold that reaches in deep and threatens to shatter him from the inside out. The pain is – the pain is staggering, his skull fit to split, trying to grapple with two irreconcilable forces. A hot trickle runs through his mustache – he may yet actually tear himself apart.

But he reaches, and he reaches, and he _holds_. He holds, and then he drives deep inside himself, and he lets it all _burn_.

~*~

 _SATINE_!

Obi-Wan whirls and tries to catch her, only managing to fall to the ground with her.

“No. No no no.” He gasps out fast, scrambling to get off of her, his hands ending up in her blood, which was spreading too quickly.

Her breathe gargles and chokes, pale hands trying to reach the wound.

The metal slug carved its way up the line of her shoulder where her arm had been outstretched, and ripped through the side of her neck, leaving a gaping wound.

“ _Di’kit, shaadlar_!” _Move_! Sha’me roars, all the strength in her voice that her body currently didn’t have, grabbing him and ripping him to his feet before she ducks and hauls Satine up gracelessly, and Obi-Wan remembers himself enough to keep up as they get into the cover of the ship.

Satine never should have left it.

But that was Obi-Wan’s mistake. He’d been so sure of himself, and Satine had trusted him.

Sha’me gets her to the top of the ramp, struggling in spite of the adrenaline and desperation, and lays Satine back down, her green arms slathered with the girls blood. Satine’s brow is pinched, her breathing choked and despaerate, he hands trying to apply pressure, though she’s shock pale and shaking, her lips colorless with blood loss.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” Apologies spill from his lips as he replaces her fingers with his, pressing his hands over the wound. Satine’s body jolts and cringes, a distressed sound of pain wracking out of her, and Obi-Wan keeps apologizing. Sha’me rips Satine’s lilac shawl free and uses an iron grip on his wrist to move his hands so she can cover the wound with it, trying to stop the bleeding more effectively –

Obi-Wan lets her, sucking in air to try and control his breathing, ignoring that his eyes were burning and blurred inside his bucket, that his hands were shaking.

 _There is no emotion_. He insists firmly, trying to reach calm. He can’t heal her if he can’t _focus_.

_There is no emotion._

_There is no emotion._

_There is no emotion_.

He draws on his inner Force, watching blood seep through lilac silk, stain silver-blonde hair, drip into the grating of the ship. Obi-Wan reaches out, thinking _he can fix this_ –

His heart stops in his chest.

He flinches, jerking back.

 _I can’t. I can’t_.

He’d just made that mistake, hadn’t he? Thinking he was good enough at something he wasn’t? He couldn’t use Night Magicks – he hasn’t had nearly the success with even the plants as Tsui has had, and Force Healing…

 _I should have gone to more lessons_ , he thinks painfully. But he’d been taking it easy, after the stress and pressure of his Senior Padawan levels, and then helping Shmi with her Knighthood levels…

His eyes blur again; Obi-Wan chokes down the spasm in his chest, grits his teeth, and reprimands himself.

The Force was a tool. One of many.

Maybe he couldn’t heal her that way, but Master Ni Hiella hadn’t been hounding him for the last three years and pushing him into medical courses for him to cry about what he couldn’t do. He _knows_ field medicine.

“I’ll hold it. I’ll hold it.” Obi-Wan insists to Sha’me, nudging her hands aside. “Can you - see what we have?” Their medical supplies were a mess, but there had to be _something_. Even just fluids, just to keep her blood volume at a nominal level…

The twi’lek warrior nods, lurching to her feet, and boots hit the ramp, making her jolt for a weapon. Obi-Wan grinds his teeth, but keeps his hands on Satine’s neck, weaving the lightest brace in the Force to encourage the bleeding to stop a little better. He’s not sure its enough – the major vessel and arteries were-

“ _Ke’mot_!” _Halt_! Sha’me barks, mando’a thick on her tongue, to stressed for translation.

They don’t, but they bark something back that has Sha’me hesitating. When they appear abruptly next to him, reaching for Satine, Obi-Wan snaps his lightsaber to hand viciously, the blade levelling under their throat.

The man’s olive eyes go wide in his olive face, shiny black hair buzzed to a fuzz on his head.

The only thing that stops the padawan, stops the desperate fury riding through him from following through, is that the man has raised his arms, and there, on the inside of his wrist, is a small sigil – three lilies carved in gold.

“We can help her. Please.” The man says, voice surprisingly even, given that one of the most deadly weapons in the galaxy is inches from his jugular. “You need a medic, and she is the future of Mandalore. Let us help her.”

Obi-Wan surrenders, drawing his weapon back, and the man leans past him, his partner unpacking a kit with alacrity and deft hands. Obi-Wan sinks back, and Sha’me pulls him out of the way, so much less strength in the act than before.

Obi-Wan reaches his feet and looks away, his gaze tracking out of the ship. Anger stirs, all snared up with guilt and vengeance, and Obi-Wan drags himself into motion, stalking down the ramp.

“ _Vaii at_?” Sha’me demands. _Where are you going_?

Obi-Wan dredges to a stop at the bottom of the ramp.

“ _Mar’eyir aru’e_.” He grits out, his grip on his lightsaber painful, but a poignant reminder. Grounding, in a way. _To find_ **_them_**.

“ _Nu draar_.” Sha’me snaps out, and Obi-Wan jerks, turning back to glare at her for the reprimand.

“Why _not_?” Obi-Wan demands.

The Mandalorian stalks down the ramp towards him, her face an unforgiving thunderhead. She comes toe to toe with him, rips his bucket off his head and grabs his chin in a blood-stained hand, her grip bruising and far easier to take than the look in her eyes.

Her jaw grinds, and she makes an _effort_.

“This is not _about_ you, _jed’ika_.” She hisses out, voice low, dark and ruthless. “You don’t get to kill anyone in _her_ name. _None of us_ kill in her name. That is _not_ who she is, and we won’t sully her with _our_ actions.”

Sha’me releases his chin, her lekku tensed into a curved, dangerous line, and she looks back at the medics, at Satine’s pale form, fallen limp and unconscious with the application of pain-sedatives.

Obi-Wan feels like someone has an icy cold hand in his chest, like they’re trying to rip his heart out.

“That girl _is_ the future of Mandalore.” Sha’me says, and in her voice is conviction, and in her voice is the depth of pain and love she feels for her.

Obi-Wan feels gutted. As a Jedi, he shouldn’t _want_ to kill anyone. “I failed.” He whispers.

Sha’me looks back to him, a hard, demanding sort of compassion in that look. A very Mandalorian empathy. “Then don’t make it worse by failing her twice over.”

A hard, bitter lump rises in his throat, and he presses it down, swallowing tightly.

 _This is the danger of Attachment_ , he realizes achingly.

Sha’me was right – doing what he had wanted to do, it wouldn’t have been for Satine, it wouldn’t have been _just_ – it would have only been selfish, only been one more failure, giving in to his fear and anger, making someone else suffer because he was suffering, giving in to Darkness.

“Does this ship have an infirmary?” One of the medics clips out.

One of the cabins was stocked to serve more or less as a shipboard infirmary. Obi-Wan turns and nods. “It’s a mess.” The ship needed more repair – which is why Vesh and Orikhid were out right now, why they’d have to come someone populated.

“Better than nothing. Can you help us move her?”

He clips his lightsaber to his belt, looking out to the spill of light and motion of the hanger beyond his ship. The threat-danger-warning was gone. Their assassin – a bounty hunter, most likely, given the lack of rage or malice that would have made sensing them easier – had cleared out.

They’d been successful, after all.

Obi-Wan breathes in and lets out a long, shuddering breath, and moves to assist them. He uses the Force to help keep her steady. He slips one hand into hers, and tries not to flinch at how very cold and slack they are.

When he’s dismissed so they can work, the two medics a focus of determination, hope and _passion-goodwill-mending_ that makes him feel safe enough to trust them, the Force offering just enough assurance to affirm that decision, else he’d hover, no doubt getting in the way. He could stay – he _wants_ to stay, and he does have some training, but every time he looks at her face… everything slips away, and panic rises up. He’s no use like that, not until he can calm himself down.

When he makes it back out to the bay, Sha’me has retrieved her blaster-rifle, gone back down the ramp, and parked herself there, a visible warning. She looks at him, dark circles under her eyes, streaks of blood on her arms, her bodysuit dampened with sweat. A lek twitches, and Obi-Wan nods, lowering himself down as well, dragging his bucket over and putting it back on his head. He lays his palms on his thighs, and breathes in deep.

Together, they wait.


	41. Chapter 41

Never in his life did Jango Fett imagine _he’d_ be the one trying to march into a fight and tell everyone to stop and pack it in.

He’s got a unit with him, and he doesn’t want to open fire on what is _mostly_ an over-agitated crowd of Mandallian citizens. He can be a ruthless bastard, but he won’t fire on his own people just to maybe get a shot at the enemy. So he’s taken to disarming, breaking weapons, and, in the more stubborn cases, those who refuse to settle down when he’s got them pinned, to yanking off buckets and chucking them, which is both embarrassing for them and keeps them out of the fight long enough to fetch it. If they’re still too stubborn to quit while they’re behind –

He’s knocked more than one of them out, two of his _verde_ helpfully removing them from the trampling zone.

He can try and break out over the open comm all he likes – there’s too much chaos, too much noise and panic and anger. He needs to find a way to get their attention, preferably before he has to call in some heavier firepower.

Jango shoots the thrusters out from under a few jetpacks, growling as one nasty piece of work free fired on everyone below.

“Bralor, can you rig an EMP?” Jango barks, gesturing to one of his more pyrotechnic lieutenants.

“ _For a crowd this size? I’d need something bigger than what I’ve got to work with_ , _Mand’alor_.”

“ _Osik_.” Jango curses, eyeing the buildings lining the streets – maybe he can call down a fighter. Modify a hyperdrive – it’d completely ruin the ship – and that might actually be _too_ much power, but at this rate-

Jango is laid flat on his back, the air sucked out of him, and the _sky is on fire_.

It flashes over – orange, blue, white hot and out, screaming as heat boils out and oxygen gets wrenched in and used up and leaving absolute silence in its wake. Every mando not on the ground is on their knees, bodies buckled for gasping, and the ones in the air-

Jango vision is spotty, the pain as he tries to get up immense from the pressure that slammed him over, but the ones in the air are kicking, clawing at their chests, at their buckets, fighting something that can’t be seen, can’t be stopped, when their dead jet-packs should have seen them dropped-

_No._

_No no no_.

Jango forces his body to move, hissing when abrasions from his armor being pressed into his skin sting and burn, air thin and unwilling to come to his breath. _Vod, what are you doing_? He shouts in his mind.

Ben’s easy to see – he’s the only one standing, he and Bo-Katan beside him, though Jango’s _ad_ backs away from the _jetii_ in jerky, staggered movements, her neck craned up, shocked into watching.

Jango forces his legs to move, his feet to carry him, muscles burning, vision swaying. He’d shout, but he chokes on thin air, coughing. Ben’s head is hung down low, but his arms are raised, outstretch, palms turned up, fingers curled in.

_They’re people, Vod!_

Some of them were _Kyr’sad_ sympathizers if not outright _verde_ , but most of them were a mix of _Haat Mando’ade_ , Neutral Houses, New Mandalorians, Old Tradition Mandallians and unaffiliated Clans.

Jango finally catches a breath that actually seems to do something for his body, his gait picking up momentum. “ - _od_!” He calls hoarsely, throat straining. “ _Vod_ , what are you _doing_?”

Ben doesn’t seem to hear him, doesn’t acknowledge him. His upheld hands are shaking, arms trembling, and he’s _killing_ them. Some of them on the ground are writhing too, and Jango doesn’t know why – why Ben’s targeted some and not others – doesn’t know if Ben’s even got a _reason_ -

“ _Gev! Gev!”_ Jango stumbles over someone on the ground, and a weapon falls from slack fingers above him, clattering as it hits the ground. _Stop! Stop this_!

Jango falters, his stride guttering to a stop as he planets his feet, fury rising up because this is – this is fucking bantha-shite, and he has no idea _why_ it’s happening, why Ben is fucking _losing his shit_ -

Jango yanks off his helmet.

“Ben Naasade, _stand the fuck down_.” He commands, his voice carrying up and down the street, curling back off the buildings, stronger than he’d expect for how out of breath he’d been just a minute ago.

Ben twitches, as if hearing the call from much farther away. He finally looks up, sun flashing off his amber visor, and his head bobs before the trembling in his arms grows more pronounced.

“I gave you an order!” Jango barks, head pounding, heart hammering, fear trickling down his neck in a cold sweat. He _hates_ _jetiise_ tricks, hates the fear they inspire that he can never seem to shake. “Stop this. _Now_.”

Ben’s visor gleams, the bucket blankly impassive for another moment that seems to stretch and stretch. Finally, something registers in the _jetii_. His fingers slacken, and he draws his arms back, tugging on his helmet as if its too heavy to lift. He gets it off with effort and it fumbles from his fingers, dropping to the ground.

“I’m trying.” The jedi says, swaying on his feet till he sags and sinks to his knees. He looks up, and he looks like _shit_. Blood dribbling from his nose, vessel burst across his right eye, blood seeping from his tear duct. A strange play of light and shadows ripple beneath his skin in a manner that makes Jango’s nerves crawl and bile burn at the back of his throat. Ben looks up at Jango, and keeps looking up until he finally sees what he’s done. His mouth slackens, storm-break gaze fluttering shut as if trying to unsee it. _What did you think you were_ doing _, Ben?_ Even on his knees, his body sways with the effort of keeping itself upright.

That pressure in the air, buzzing like the force of too much sound, just without the noise – it snaps, and those in the air fall.

Ben tips forward, barely catching himself on his palms, and Jango wants to grab him by the chest plate and scream at him, wants to hit him, demand what the hell he was thinking-

“Help him up.” He barks at Bo-Katan instead. She jolts, still shocked and more than a little cautious before forcing herself to march up to the _jetii_. Jango turns, looking at his people, who are finally able to move, though most of them are still too shocked and winded to do so. It occurs to the _Mand’alor_ that Ben kept the worst from him – from him _and_ Bo-Katan - yet again.

“Just give me a moment.” The _jetii_ murmurs, when Bo-Katan grabs the underside of his arm roughly, yanking on it. She’s strong, but Ben is still twice her weight. The jedi master breathes in, deep and slow; breathes out. He grabs hold of Bo-Katan’s arm in turn, and pulls himself to his feet, chest rising and falling perfectly steady. Deep and slow.

He manages a step in Jango’s direction, wobbling at the knee like it might collapse beneath him again, but then he takes another, and he takes another, keeping his gaze low, focus distant, breathing deep and slow. Bo-Katan marches right on his heels, her fists clenched violently.

“ _Ni ceta_.” He offers a drawn, contrite apology when he draws near, Jango waiting with stony impassiveness, watching. Ben looks down at his hand, gaze drifting to it but he’s _looking_ at something else. “It was too much.”

Jango gives him a hard stare, trying to parse the depth of those simple words and their utterly unsimple meaning. A shift of motion catches his eye and he follows it, one mando staggering to their feet, lifting their blaster-

“Stow it and sit your ass down!” Jango barks, his own blaster in hand without a thought. “Or I’ll finish what he started.”

The mando drops back down, angrily tucking their blaster away, shoulders hunching at being scolded like a teenling with no trigger control. Jango scans the crowd, the street. “That goes for _all_ of you. What the fuck is wrong with you? There were _children_ here today!”

Either no one dares to speak, or they still can’t get enough air. He’d expect accusations to have started flying.

He wonders if they feel half as shitty as he does – just thoroughly _spent_ , even his flush of anger rapidly slipping away into a numb blankness he can’t quite explain, his emotions just as wisp-thin and elusive as the burned oxygen in the air. He has a feeling about that he doesn’t quite like.

Jango draws in a breath and lets out a sighing growl, reaching up to swipe sweat off his face and scrub a hand through his hair.

“Alright.” Jango says, lifting his voice again. “Everyone is going to go home or to wherever it is your ass hunkers down at night, and every single clan, work-unit, and association here is going to send me _one_ _person_ \- “ He emphasizes this sharply. “ – who can speak on their behalf. Seven in the morning, eastern plateau.” Jango pauses, huffing out a breath. Such a meeting has just as much a chance of turning into a shit-show as today had, but…

An effort has to be made to make the fighting _stop_. Jango knows, deep down, that he’d willingly fight until every last _Kyr’stadiise_ was dead. He knows that others would die and suffer along the way. Those fighting at his side, and those just… caught in the middle. A year and a half ago he might have hesitated, but he would have kept on fighting anyway. Three years ago, he wouldn’t have even cared.

So little as a week ago, that grim, bloody wish to see every last one them dead, to see their clans brought to ruin, just as his had been – it had still been curled in his chest, seeping darkly across his thoughts in the still moments, lingering on his mind when he couldn’t sleep for the nightmares.

It doesn’t bring him comfort now, that pit of hatred, rage, and vengeance that runs so deep and so strong inside him. Not now that the whispers of exactly what kind of _demagolka_ it could turn him into were snared in his mind, flashing in his nightmares.

So he thinks about that, as he stands here in front of the _Mando’ade_ , and he thinks of what his _Jorad’par_ might expect, might do. He has to try, at least, to consider what her voice would be in all this, since she is not here to argue it in his ear. Fett’s promise to Mandalore is vengeance. Satine Kryze’s is hope.

Maybe she can follow through. Maybe she can’t. But Jango, in spite of himself, wants to give her the chance.

 _All our people. Even the ones we hate_.

Well, he _hates_ it.

“ _Kyr’stad_ too.” He bites out sourly. “I’ll give you a chance to say your piece, on my honor. But do _not_ test me, _Mando’ade_ , or _I will_ rain fire from the fucking sky.”

His voice rings out, and he thinks his point is rather made.

~*~

“We’ve got the duchess stable, but she needs better care than we can give her here.” Medic Shem Ihu says bluntly, his partner Tama backing him up with quiet fastidiousness. Blood spots their sleeves. “A hospital would be preferable.”

“A hospital may be too much risk.” Sha’me looks to Orikhid as he speaks, the chagrian having returned to find the ship in distress. His pale blue face is solemn, but his powerful beating remains steadfast. He’s endured worse storms, that one. Young Vesh, on the other hand, had looked spooked at the blood on the floor, at the circumstances, and quietly disappeared into the engine compartment. The boy was deeply troubled, and more than a little scared. Sha’me thinks it best to let him have some time to himself to deal with it. “As long as she’s alive, she’s a target. Not only does that put her in danger, but those around her as well.”

The muscles in her arms and neck tighten, her lekku turning stiff. That is a lesson the jedi perhaps understands too well, and he has more than enough of his own reasons to be uneasy entering a Mandalorian medical facility, with the state of things as they are. The attack on the medical station had been a shockingly callous move by _Kyr’stad_.

The medics grimace, sharing pinched looks. “This ship isn’t equipped to handle injuries this severe, and we’d rather not move her too much. There must be somewhere you can go?”

Sha’me sighs, arms crossed, and considers their options. “Fett has field surgeons.” She remarks. “He can spare one of them, at least.” She can contact Ronin Murr, she thinks, with relative ease.

“We can’t stay _here_.” Orikhid points out, frowning.

“Of course not.” Sha’me grunts out, her body reminding her that she is not well as her tension builds into a headache, and her muscles twinge with the threat of cramps. “But Clan Betoya will shelter us while she recovers. It’s hardly the first time my kin have taken in and hidden refugees.”

“Are you suggesting we return to Mandalore?” Kenobi appears in the entry to the galley. Sha’me looks the boy over critically, from his sandy-red crown to the set of his balance on his feet. He seems much steadier for having meditated, in spite of sequestering himself at Satine’s side afterwards, helping in what ways he could. He must have been drawn out by their voices.

She’d been skeptical, watchful of her students infatuation with a boy who belonged to the _jetiise_ first and foremost. She hadn’t thought him heartless, _jetiise_ being what they were, but she had expected his affections may run shallow in comparison to that of a raised _mando’ad_.

This wasn’t the way she’d wanted to be proved wrong, on that front.

His expression was serene now, all calm poise and control, but she won’t forget that look in his eyes, the anguish and anger, that twitch of a snarl and the careless readiness to break his own vows for vengeance.

“Mandalore is too far, and too central to the conflict.” She shakes her head in small gestures, lekku sore. “My clan has a few homesteads on Phindar. One of them should be willing to take us in.” Sha’me informs them, half a plan already having been in mind to go there before – before this.

“That’s still another system over.” Orikhid points out cautiously.

“But it’s a system out of the way of the fighting.” Sha’me retorts, tiredness and stress making her irritable. “And, ” she points out with a hard edged tone, “ there may be something we can do there. It’s a fuel rich system.”

Obi-Wan catches her gaze, the red-headed padawans own eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “And _Kyr’stad_ has to be getting their fuel from somewhere.”

She knew he’d catch on. He was pretty good at making leaps in logic. The twi’lek nods. “We give Satine time to recover, we go over the data we’ve already got and see if there isn’t more intel to gather, and maybe we find something that can help cripple _Kyr’stad’s_ offensive.”

She would dearly love, with all her heart, to blow something up right about now.

Orikhid blows out a breath, crossing his arms as he looks between his companions. The chagrian looks to the two medics. “Will you be able to accompany us? At least until Fett sends someone?”

“For the promise of a better Mandalore?” Medic Ihu replies, black brow arching. “I’d follow that girl across the galaxy if I had to.”

That settles between them, and Sha’me closes her eyes.

She hadn’t thought much of little Satine Kryze when Fett had first asked her to teach the girl to protect herself, to teach her to fight the Mandalorian way, to not simply survive her opponents, but to overcome them. The child had been willing, which the _Haat Mando’ad_ had given her credit for, but she’d been…proud to the point of disdain, and irretractable in her idealism, to the point of blatantly ignoring what the New Mandalorian vision would truly cost the rest of their people if they had their way.

But under that pride and stubbornness had been fear, and anger, and desperation.

Sha’me could have shattered her back then, she thinks, torn down her illusions and exposed her own incapability and broken the girl. Or made her worse, taken an idealist and turned her into a zealot.

There was something indomitable in that girl, even then, just like her father before her. Satine would have survived her, Sha’me thinks. One way or another, she believes this girl was _destined_ to rule Mandalore. But the version of Mandalore that she ruled…

It was strange, how a system renowned for its strength could have a future so fragile.

So Sha’me had studied this girl. She could have done her job and left, but she didn’t. She observed, and this is what she saw: Satine Kryze _loved_ her people, and that love didn’t just run deep, it ran through everything that girl was. There was promise in that.

But there was poison too – and it wasn’t New Mandalore, and their constant correspondence, their cajoling and comfort that Sha’me observed but did not interfere with. They gave Satine something Sha’me simply couldn’t, back then.

No, it was _Coruscant_ that leeched into the girl, that altered her manners and her mindset, that groomed her idea of civilization, her understanding of politics and government, and eroded away the link between who she was born and what she could someday be. It wasn’t an overt thing, perhaps it wasn’t even a deliberate thing, but Coruscant was very _present_ and Mandalore so far, far away.

And Sha’me couldn’t stand it. So she took a chance on this girl – she took _more_ than a chance. She decided she would not train her. She would take this child into her heart and she would _raise_ her. It was a vow made to no one but herself, but it paid, and it paid, and it kept paying.

She could have broken Satine Kryze. Instead, she taught the girl to _bend_. Not to yield, but to adapt, not to fight, but to _dance_. Instead of confronting her, she challenged, trying not to hit her head on so much as sideways, and letting the girl bridge the difference. She pulled her away from the pretty skyline of Coruscant and took her deep, where real people lived under the clean surface and lofty ideals, where even pockets of home could be found. Sha’me never told her she was wrong, but she asked her the questions Satine didn’t know to ask herself, until she figured out in her own head that maybe she had to take a long, hard look at what she was told was _right_.

Satine had surprised her, the growth in the girl every gratification Sha’me Betoya needed for her efforts, for the long span of time and distance from her home and her _vod_.

Then Satine Kryze had _surpassed_ her.

And Sha’me had shifted from having hope in what this girl could be to believing in what she was.

“She _is_ inspiring.” Obi-Wan murmurs.

Sha’me snorts softly out her nose. “She is that.” The older woman agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
> Demagolka - someone who commits atrocities/ a real-life monster/ a war criminal.


	42. Chapter 42

Jango gets a good, hard grip on the back of Ben’s neck and marches him forcibly into the ship, Bo-Katan dogging their footsteps with a dangerous cant to her frame.

As soon as the ramp closes, the tense, gritted silence breaks.

“What. The fuck. Were you _doing_?” The _Mand’alor_ demands, releasing him so abruptly Ben staggers, catching himself on the ladder to stop himself from falling over.

“What happened to my sister?” Bo-Katan demands, aggressively shoving her way past her adoptive _buir_ , pale green eyes as sharp and crackling as flint.

“What?” Jango snaps.

“My sister!” Bo-Katan turns her fear-fueled fury on him. “He said her name, and then he just lost it!”

Ben presses his palm to his brow, feeling rather woozy. Their voices pull strangely in his ears, but their emotions – hurt. His defenses are weak. He’d opened up more of himself to the Force than good sense would caution.

“What the fuck happened to Satine?” Jango demands, echoing his adoptive child, a whole new problem carving lines into the younger mans tan face. Ben wilts into the ladder, wiping at the bloody dribble under his nose.

“I don’t _know_.” He grunts out, feeling slurred. “All I got was one intense burst of panic from my padawan.” Ben cracks his eyes open. “Someone should probably try and _find out_.”

“All of that, and you don’t even fucking _know_?” Bo-Katan all but roars, getting up in his face. Jango reels her back, snagging her by jetpack.

“ _Tukran’ika_ , go.” He commands, and Bo-Katan is already gone, throwing one baleful look over her shoulder before storming out with dangerous grace. Her nickname is quite apt.

Ben’s head swims, and Jango helps get him up the ladder without falling off, bitching under his breath the whole way. Ben staggers into the nearest cabin and collapses on the bunk with a grunt. The cinnamon-haired jedi master rolls onto his back and presses his palms against his eyes. The edged silence stretching out tells him well enough what’s coming.

“What happened?”

There it is.

Ben draws out a sigh, his chest feeling hollow, his bones like they were full of sparklers, bursting with brightness to the point of pain. He groans a long, slow tone low in his throat, urging the juxtaposed sensations to pass. This wasn’t his usual over-extension of the Force.

Fett growls, pacing a bit before moving over and sinking his ass down on the other end of the bunk. Ben doesn’t even have to see him to know he’s glowering at the jedi master, that a muscle is probably ticking in his jaw, hard at work on tamping down the Mandalorian supercommando’s temper.

Ben appreciates the effort his patience takes. Jango is a good friend.

“No matter what I do, or don’t do, some things remain constant.” Ben starts unenthusiastically. “In one life and the other, Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi is assigned to Protect the Duchess Satine Kryze. The circumstances changed, and the timing, but….” Ben lets the details slide. They’re ultimately unimportant now. “I fell in love with mine, and in the end, my love is what got her killed. But that was over a decade from now. When Obi-Wan – when he screamed, I – “ Ben curls inward. “She died in my arms, and I couldn’t save her. I thought she had died again. It’s not – she’s not _my_ Satine, but I thought she had _died again_ -“

“ _Vod_.” Jango calls him back, the bite in his tone worn-sounding.

Ben falls silent, biting the inside of his lip, and drags himself back. He breathes in deep, feels the Force wisp through the air in his lungs, sink into flesh, spread and flow and ease out again, into the world.

Ben drags his hands down his face and drops them over his stomach. He stares sullenly at the ceiling, and blinks dry eyes. “The Sith didn’t just orchestrate the Clone Wars. Their plots are so much more expansive than that. They have been seeding the destruction of the Republic and the Jedi Order for _generations_. Everywhere I turn, I can sense it. The darkness, the malice, the ruin. It seems as if the threads of their designs touch _everything_. I feel like I’m caught in their web, and matter how much I try to cut it away, how much I do to unsnare us from it, I can’t escape it.”

Jango mutters a low curse, swiping an agitated hand across his chin before swinging his legs up, boots leaning against Ben’s hip, the marginal weight a comfort. The _Mand’alor_ crosses his arms, watching Ben with a weighted gaze.

“I felt it out there today. They’ve had their hands in this war – in Duke Kryze death too. It was too much. I just wanted to destroy it. I wanted it _gone_. But’s it’s not….” Ben shudders. “The Force isn’t some other, intangible thing. It’s not inherently _external_. So the darkness I was trying to destroy wasn’t just in the air, or in the actions around us, wasn’t just a discordant undercurrent driving everyone emotions. It’s in people too. So I was killing them.”

That’s not what he wanted, not what he meant to do at all. He was just trying to burn it out, trying to purge the taint of it from the battlefield. But it wasn’t all just something the Sith put there. People made their own darkness. People fed it all by themselves.

Ben knew that. Ben _knew that_.

But he hadn’t seen people at all. He’d just seen shadows.

And he’d been killing them.

And that scared him.

“What do you mean,” Jango struggles for composure, his voice coming out clipped and cold, “ they had a hand in Adonai’s death?”

Ben squeezes his eyes shut, fingers curlings, fingernails craping dully against his armor. “I’m sorry.” He apologizes, just barely above a whisper. “If it had been a natural wound, I might have been able to save him.”

Jango fist cracks down on Ben’s shin. Once. Then twice more. Through the armored greaves, it doesn’t hurt. Much.

“ _Haar’chak_ , Ben!” Jango snarls, and then again in Basic. “ _Damn it_!”

“ _Ni ceta_.” Ben repeats. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry_.

“Damn it.” Jango seethes, shaking. “Fuck. You never quit, do you? You never fucking quit with this _shit_.”

Ben wisely stays silent. Jango’s ragged breathing juxtaposes his own measured, deep inhalations and sighing exhales.

“I’m already having nightmares about myself.” Jango says, after the minutes stretch, his voice made coarse by dredged up grief.

Ben rasps a bitter chuckle. “So am I.”

~*~

 _She’s alive_ , Bo-Katan thinks desperately to herself, fists clenched, her gait dangerous enough that the Mando’ade move out of her way as she storms back to her ship. _If they’re requesting a field surgeon, then she is still alive_.

Bo-Katan holds on to that. She holds on to that with everything that she is.

 _If they’re calling for one of Fett’s surgeons_ , her thoughts throw at her, _then she’s hurt badly_.

 _Satine is strong_ , Bo-Katan insists, her chest tight and hot, her breathing too quick and fast. She counts it, slows the pace. It doesn’t help much. That’s her little sister. That’s her _little sister_.

Her eyes burn, but she knows she won’t cry.

When she had seen Satine on that broadcast, clad in lilac and maroon, _beskar and gold_ , she’d been blown away. She’d been proud, so fucking proud, and she had been stricken by the keenest, bitterest sense of regret. Because that was her _baby sister_. And she wasn’t all knees and elbows and soft cheeks anymore, she wasn’t the preteen still trying to dignify a hot temper with a lady’s manners that Bo-Katan had left behind.

She’d grown up.

Satine was all grown up, and she didn’t need her big sister to take care of her anymore. She was all grown up, and she’d done it without Bo-Katan. Bo-Katan _hadn’t been there_.

And nothing in the galaxy can take that back.

So she _can’t_ lose her sister now, not when she hasn’t made things right between them, not like-

Bo-Katan stalks into her ship. She’ll strip and clean her gear until she’s calm enough not to beat communications officers and slicers for information they don’t actually have. It will give them time to get information.

It’s one of the lessons Fett’s managed to make stick, because he’ll put up with a lot, but her abusing the _verde_ under their command is not one of them. Her own _vod_ and peers? Sure. But not someone who answers to them who hasn’t actually fucked up enough to deserve it.

 _Kyr’stad_ wouldn’t have cared. She has to stop, plant her feet, breathe and remind herself that that is _not_ a point in their favor.

She doesn’t always realize how deep Death Watch really got inside her skin. Fett won’t force her to go see a therapist, but sometimes when she really, _really_ pisses him off, he’ll catch himself before resorting to violence and take his temper elsewhere, then come back with some odd little focusing technique or aggravating mental exercise and give her the choice between that or a ridiculous amount of physical exercises to do as discipline. She will grudgingly admit to herself that they work, but she still chooses the physical exercises half the time. Just to prove that she can take anything he can dish out.

There is a dull clang to her left, and Bo-Katan tenses, hand dropping to the grip of her blaster before she remembers.

 _Fuck_.

She’d forgotten about that. Releasing the blaster, Bo-Katan punches in the code for the door-key and narrows her eyes.

Her two unwanted guests are right where she left them, sitting in the middle of the floor, trussed up in pulse-restraints and gagged for good measure. One can blame the other for that – Bo-Katan would have left them able to talk if the one hadn’t tried to bite her.

Mavi Var’de’s quartz grey eyes burn like cinder under her strawberry-blonde fringe, but the cool green eyes of the black-haired girl _jetii verd’ibir_ tied up with her are just scrunched in affronted impatience and discomfort and she wriggles against the bindings.

Bo-Katan crosses her arms and lifts a red brow. “Alright, you two, here’s how this is gonna go…”


	43. Chapter 43

“Jedi!-“ Captain Jillian Tahan of the 117th Sky barks sharply, her purple hair a single splash of favor amidst the darkened command deck, the lights flickering to failure.

“Ignore it. Keep going."

The command comes from them both, Jedi Master Mace Windu and Jedi Knight Depa Billaba, both of them planted front and center of the wide transparisteel viewport, chins lowered, eyes closed, one arm reaching for the shoulder of the jedi next to them, the other outstretched – a near perfectly symmetrical image, made starker and glorified by the fiery blue-gold-red flaring an bursting in front of them, washing the deck in whirling color and shadow, flickering off their skin and seeming to glow around their figures.

“More power to the shields.” Tahan commands, rigid with sharp tension as the mid-sized carrier they’d transferred to for this assault was used a bludgeoning ram through Uhanayih’s lines of defenses, everything sacrificed for the shields, enhanced by the Jedi’s own powers and guided by their instincts.

Tahan isn’t a woman of faith, but right now, she holds on to what little of it she can scrounge up, because right now – right now, faith in those two jedi is the only thing that can convince her that this isn’t a suicide run.

 _You’d better be right_ , she thinks darkly at their backs, the lives of her well-trained men and woman on the line here, the responsibility for their lives resting heavy against her chest. _You’d better be right about this, Jedi_.

They _swore_ that the Yinchorri High Command, headed by _Intelligenista_ – a class of scholars and intellectuals, strictly divided from the warrior class, would be hidden away on this small rock deeper in the system, as opposed to somewhere closer to the thick of the confrontation. Tahan felt uneasy relying on data gathered from historical records as opposed to current intelligence reports, but she had her orders.

She felt a little better about it when they encountered such strong opposition crowded around this little lifeless planet. It certainly suggested there was something of import here, when such resources would otherwise be much more valuable in the dogfight around the homeworld.

But even with all their power diverted to shields, the carrier was taking a beating, shields and stabilizers pushed to the limit, the barrage near ceaseless, not to mention-

“ _Jedi_!” Tahan barks, gaze catching on the scanners, on the look of stress and rising panic on the face of the officer sitting there. “How are we supposed to _land_ this thing?”

~*~

The jagged currents of battle clash and divide, swirl and mix and separate, like saltwater against fresh, like blood and oil. Blaster-fire scatters, streaking in all directions. Pain and desperation seeps through the Living Force like a vapor, but so does courage, so does determination, so does stubbornness. Lives burn brightly. Death blooms and scatters like a cold breeze, there and gone again.

Qui-Gon breathes, and surrenders some of himself to that current, letting it carry him, letting it drive his senses, his movements. The world turns, and he turns with it, not an obstacle, but no mere victim either – he cleaves to the current. The current cleaves to him. He and the Force are one. The world moves – he moves the world.

His lightsaber thrums, the summer green blade perfectly attuned to its wielder, the wielder attuned to the Force, every motion a certainty, guided by faith. He guards the back of a struggling pair of 8787 Peacekeepers who’ve gotten separated from their unit, a vigorous defense against a torrential hail of blaster-fire, gently guiding their course back to their fellows, following not the terrain but the ebb and flow of the fighting, the ebb and flow of the Force. There were quicker ways to get them where they were going – but those ways were harder, going against the whispering, subtle guidance of the Force.

Even through the thrall of the Living Force, Qui-Gon can feel the stress on his muscles, the scratching in his lungs, the strain of prolonged battle on an aging body. The terrain turns their path – something Qui-Gon himself could pass, but not so his peacekeeper companions. There is no fault in this. Either direction is downhill. He grits his teeth and turns them, the Force warning of either way, but they _must_ go forward. They cannot go back. Even with the Force as his ally, it’s guidance is no guarantee of success. That is not a failure of faith. That simply _is_.

The slope turns against them, Yinchorri forces appearing on the high side, and Qui-Gon breathes in deep, draws a little more strength from the world, focuses himself, and moves. He leaps, trying to gain ground, to keep himself between the peacekeepers, who were most effective at a little more range, and danger.

It’s a furious fight, he against five. Three encircle him, rife with the chance at claiming the glory of besting a jedi in combat, and two fire on his companions. It’s a furious defense, and he calls on reserve after reserve of strength, just as he has for hours, and it does not take him long to realize it is a failing defense. The first pang of fear, of denial, comes quickly, surging in his chest. Qui-Gon breathes through it, his blade unfaltering. He will not resign himself to defeat, but he will accept it. If this is his fate – he will accept it.

He keeps fighting, keeps pressing, keeps pushing, the motions of his lightsaber flicker-quick, calling on rustier lessons of Makashi precision than his preferred Ataru, but circumstances demanded it. If his blade hit armor, it would gutter out, leaving himself and those he was defending dangerously vulnerable for precious seconds. He’s already had to match the Yinchorri with naught but his bare hands and the Force today, and he dearly does not wish to repeat the experience.

A cry of warning – human, abrupt, distracting-

A rushing threat, and Qui-Gon falters at the feel of a cascade wave of the Force, spilling over, enveloping him-

A shadow passes above him, and a hearty thud thunks down behind him, boots planting in sandy, rocky soil with the harrowing plasticity of youth. The blaster-fire from the hill-crest across from Qui-Gon’s current opponents, where another two Yinchorri have appeared, is dashed away by the vibrant blush hue of his padawans pink lightsaber, saving his hide.

“Tsk.” His padawan tuts from behind him, having a momentary stand-off with both the Yinchorri across the way and the third who had engaged Qui-Gon. “Someone ought to be watching your back, Master.” Sian scolds.

Qui-Gon find himself grinning in relief, rejuvenated by her bright presence. “Someone is.” He remarks, and that is all the reprieve they have before the Yinchorri are on them again, the two Peacekeepers alternating fire now to keep the rest at bay.

He had scolded her a hundred times for her aggressive tendency to sprawl all over him in the Force while meditating together. She does the exact same thing on the battlefield.

He doesn’t scold now.

Where in peace, her endeavor to stamp herself against him is aggravating in its invasiveness, here, her energy leeching into his lends him strength he sorely needed, and the ease at which she not only connects with his presence, but flows into his attunement with the Living Force, is unexpected and precious. Her movements slowly, second by second, flow into his, until they move not as two, but as one, the sinuous line of their movements flowing perfectly back and force between them. There are no missteps, no mistaken bumping in to one another, no accidental restriction of movement when he must turn or give ground, when she must leap or brace herself.

Most impressive, Qui-Gon thinks, is that they are so perfectly aligned, he is not once in danger of being skewered by her aggravating reverse-grip. They turn around one another, trading opponents, and Qui-Gon, for the first time, leans back into her strength, instead of retreating before she gleaned too much of that which he would rather keep private. She didn’t flinch, though he knew there were ugly marks on his soul, wounds on his heart that never healed, that festered, even now, things he could not let go of, even though he knew he should. And she didn’t dig into them, prying at them, the way he had always feared she would, as boldly curious and oft-times unapologetic as she could be.

Joy radiates across their bond, a brief flash in the midst of fiery determination and sharp situational awareness. Joy as a measure of relief, for a loneliness finally answered.

 _Oh, padawan_.

He had not realized-

Or perhaps he had simply not _acknowledged_ -

‘ _Be in the moment, master_.’ The scolding comes, colored with teasing and a flush of shy anxiety over the discovery of a weakness she had not meant to reveal to him. Well, perhaps now she'd understand a little better his own reticence regarding personal spiritual space.

Qui-Gon narrowly ducks a blaster-bolt and the swing of an awe-bladed energy stave. He grunts when the pole snaps against his and, nearly breaking his grip on his lightsaber. ‘ _That would be wise, yes_.’ He sends back wryly, appropriately chastised.

‘ _Well, I learned from the best_.’ Her cheekiness bounces right back at him, and then her hand is on his shoulder and her foot is planted on solid air and she is driving her lightsaber through the eye of the Yinchorri in front of him, pink blade skirting through the slimmest wedge of a gap in his armor. The blade strikes the back of the helmet and gutters out, but the damage is already done. Her presence in the Force flinches at the quick chill of death, but her actions do not, her jaw set grimly. They trade places, her plasma-buckler taking a brunt of force than pushes her heels into the dirt while her lightsaber takes a second to cycle and reignite.

Qui-Gon deflects the next blaster-bolt back to sender, hitting the gap at the warrior’s hip, felling them, but not fatally.

The 8787’s take care of that.

In a moment of reprieve, Qui-Gon’s gaze flickers up to the sky. _Mace_ , he thinks - a half-prayer cast out to the Force and to his friend, _swiftly, please_.

The Force makes no promises, and the fight drags on.


	44. Chapter 44

‘ _How_ are _we going to land this thing_?’ Depa wonders, the thought flickering between her and her master as she focuses on making sure the hull of this ship doesn’t peel apart as they bludgeon through the weak atmosphere, the external forces of heat, gravity and pressure searingly frictous against her efforts.

Down below, under the brittle crust of the planet, they could feel the dense knot of living beings, of focus and intent, a pulling in the Force that said _here-here-here_.

Depa grits her teeth, the Force whipping around her, and grapples physics, willing the ship to hold together. All she has to do is keep this ship in one piece.

Her master is the one who has to guide it down, no power to be spared for the engines with the shields demanding everything.

She’s not confident that they can even do this – land a ship of this size in this manner, but they are jedi – if they have no other choice, they make it work.

 _Do or do not_.

‘ _I don’t think I’d call what we’re about to do a landing_.’ Comes her masters tight, grimly-humored reply.

‘ _We_?’ Depa teases reflexively, given that _he_ was the one in control here, as a spike of fear slips down her spine, a fiery explosion ripping through her minds eye. She shakes it off. ‘ _Sorry, Master. We are in this together_.’

A brush of solid warmth against her mind, and Depa leans into his strength, as he leans into hers. They can feel the planet coming up, the looming presence of the rocky surface, the crawling instinct to _abort-abort-abort_ that they both press past, determined to succeed.

“Brace yourselves!” They command together, and the world rushes up to meet them.

~

They claim ground, uniting disparate groups of 8787’s Peacekeepers back into a cohesive fighting squadrons, holding defensible territory while their jedi contingent weaves in and out.

Big and brawny as they are, the Yinchorri make formidable, frightening opponents – but endurance is not their species strong suit, and the ferocity of the fighting ebbs in the Peacekeepers favor. Not all of them are suited for drawn-out combat either, but the bulk of their forces were comprised of Twi’leks, Humans, Togruta, and Bothans – evolved from persistence predators.

Wherever the offensive grows thickest, is pressed the hardest, their jedi dive in, the two masters and two padawans, with six lightsabers between them, forming a near impenetrable wall, driving the enemy back, at times moving in such perfect synchronicity that one could believe they shared a single mind, not a waver or a seconds difference between them, not something learned and trained into cohesion – something _connected_.

The Living Force pulsed strongly – these four stronger in it than most, perfectly surrendered to the moment, utterly undivided in it’s embrace, letting it drive them.

The sight of them, standing together, holding back the tide of blaster-fire and staves and claw-tipped gauntlets, it gave the peacekeepers standing with them resolve, gave them something more than grim determinations and grit – it gave them hope, out of what had appeared a hopeless situation, the end uncertain.

Sian can feel it, bolstering at her back, rising like dawn, and catches her master’s eye, and then Padawan Ventress’s. The dathomiri girl seems a little taken aback by it – the admiration, the unconditional support, the faith – in her, but she lets it in, lets it flow through her, and burns all the more fiercely for it. The girl was a powerhouse of the Living Force, all raw and untapped, not like Master Qui-Gon’s gentle, deep currents, but she knew how to use it, how to drift in it as easy as breathing. Sian lets herself dance along that power, along Master Narec’s whirlpool beyond her, energy drawn in and expelled in a smooth, cyclic manner, and rides the tides.

 _This is what we’re meant to be_ , she thinks. Not in battle, perhaps, not amidst all this chaos and death, but _more than themselves_. It felt good. It felt _right_.

Pride curls around her – her master’s pride, deeply desired and not oft expressed, but she can _feel_ it here, and it warms her blood, rewards her patience. She knows its real, now, for all the times when he fails to actually say anything about it. She threads into it, holding it tight, impressing it into her skin if she can, trying to salve the wound of its future absence in advance.

Her blade moves, one of six moving together, she moves, all of them stepping forward, and the Force moves with them, blades rising like a beacon, like a shield of light.

~*~

Impact knocks Depa to her knees, her grip on the ship becoming very real as her fingers dig against durasteel plating and she holds on, wrapping herself around the shell of their vessel, pressing herself up against the inner hulls, refusing to allow them to buckle. The pressure drives back against her, prying and sharp in turns as stone shatters around red-hot metal plating and pure kinetic energy and they barrel into the planet’s fragile crust. The crew cries out, holding on to whatever they can, strapped down and bitingly fearful. Depa shouts low and hard when the hulls splits despite her efforts, feeling like scratches carved into her skin. Alarms shriek and atmosphere whistles and they come to a brutal, jarring stop, nose deep in a cavern, a shattered trail of dust and pulverized rock no doubt scrawled across the surface of the planet.

The transparisteel viewport shatters – outward.

Depa looks up, sweat trickling down her face, and her master – her former master offers her a hand. He’d shattered the viewport. Beyond it – beyond it seemed an archaic sort of assembly hall – carved stone and cobweb laden shadows, a ring of stadium seating they’d carved there way right into, a heavy table low in the center of the room beneath them, surrounded by stunned Yinchorri _Intelligenista_ in heavy, embroidered robes.

“Wha- What is the _meaning_ of this!” One of them garbles out, their voices to deep to call it a shriek.

Depa rises to her feet with her masters help, and together they step out of the shattered viewport and on to the still piping hot nose of their vessel, the Force stopping them from sliding off more than anything else. Her boots smolder, and steam curls up. Torn panels spark, some of them outright on fire. Depa and her master disregard these entirely, stepping forward.

Her master releases her hand after brushing his thumb over the side of her wrist, a gentle support and acknowledgement of her efforts, a silent _well-done_ , and draws his lightsaber. Bristling purple light casts across half the chamber, highlighting the dark planes of his deep brown face.

“I am Jedi Master Mace Windu. On behalf of the Senate of the Galactic Republic, we’re here to negotiate your surrender, High Command of the Yinchorri.” He addresses them.

Depa crosses her arms, letting her expression fall coldly as she observes them, backing her former master up with cool reserve.

The Yinchorri sputter and gape, some still seeming to try and come to grips with the fact that a _spaceship_ just _came barreling through their roof_.

Master Windu lifts one foreboding brow. He’ll give them a _minute_.

~*~

Ships dart overhead, blaring a message in the Yinchorri language over a broadcast speaker, circling the field a few times before darting off elsewhere.

The Yinchorri howl in rage –

And back off.

Weapons are lowered, defeat and loathing bristling up in equal measure, threatening gestures made. Some of them turn on each other, arguing heatedly.

But they stand down.

They surrender.

Qui-Gon lowers his blade cautiously, relief hitting him deep, sweat soaking his hair and tunics, blisters stinging on his hands, his feet hot and sore in his boots, his knees protesting.

He startles when a weight slams into him and nearly topples him over - a hundred and forty pounds of tall, lean, excited devaronian, strong arms squeezing his ribcage. “We did it, Master!”

Qui-Gon surrenders to it, sighing agreeably, and pats a hand over her white-streaked brown hair. “It seems we did, Sian.” He replies, only wheezing with a _little_ exaggeration.

She bounces back, releasing him with sly roll of her iridescent blue eyes, which were bright with victory and relief. She looks back up quickly. “I’m _starving_.” She announces emphatically.

Behind them, one of the 8787’s laughs at that and agrees, leaning into two of his fellows, looping his arms over their shoulders, as exhausted and grateful as anything. Sian grins companionably at them and draws in to their number, introducing herself, getting names, nodding at some question and moving to the next cluster, and the next, and the next, as the battle formation breaks up and they find their friends to be assured they’re all in one piece. She mingles with ease, her mere presence as reassuring s anything she has to say, and Qui-Gon watches her wistfully.

 _That girl is more than I deserve_. He thinks. He knows it – he’s _known_ it, and fallen short of appreciating it as it was due, as if by refusing to give her room in his heart he could stop her from taking it anyways. He had given too much of it to Xanatos, and when he’d left, when he’d _Fallen_ , Qui-Gon had felt like Xanatos had ripped his heart out and taken it with him. Qui-Gon couldn’t bear that pain again, could barely bear the existing pain still.

But he has been grossly unfair, in presuming that all _this_ padawan will do is grow to fail him the same as the last. In holding on to that fear and using it as a shield, as a barrier to keep her at a distance. He has been _selfish_.

He will likely continue to do so. Such faults are not fixed in a day. But she had not only guarded his body – his life – today. She’d guarded the weaknesses in his spirit as well. He has often been perplexed, at finding himself to be her master. Today he is glad. Today, he _wanted_ to be her master. He needs to stop _trying_ at it. He needs to _be_ her Master, not one grudgingly accepting that yes, he had a student, but one his student could one day claim with pride.

He can sense the promise in her. He knows that she will not be a part of his legacy, the fulfillment of all his battered hopes. Her star will not hang on his.

She will not be regarded and remembered as Jedi Knight Sian Jeisel, the Padawan of Master Qui-Gon Jinn.

He will be remembered as Qui-Gon Jinn, the Master of Jedi Knight Sian Jeisel.

If there is any justice in History, History will humble him.

She catches his eye across the crowd, the iridescent blue flash always glancing back when they were separated, always checking up. Weak evening light doesn’t do much for her brown and white hair, or her tawny orange-tan fur-and-skin tone, coated in dust, her black freckles and marking mixed with the dark stain of blood spatter. But those eyes shine highly, and the Force bursts from her presence like a spring, full of triumph.

She grins, waving, and Qui-Gon smiles fondly, lifting a hand in response.

Her grin gets wider, sharp teeth a bright slash in the dimming light, and the sixteen year old devaronian bounces, gleeful to have gotten his response. Qui-Gon sighs, shaking his head. _That’s my padawan_.


	45. Chapter 45

“I dislike this conclusion.” Master Dooku says bluntly, his features tight with discomfort after hours of sitting in on the holo-call conference with Master’s Yoda, Mundi, and Gallia, several officials from Judicial, and a pair of representatives of the Senate.

Yaddle warbles low in her throat, eyes half-lidded in deep contemplation, and Mace rubs his brow before steepling his fingers, elbows propped on the table.

“I agree.” He remarks.

There were many pieces to this baffling puzzle – The Yinchorri, Offworld Mining, Xanatos Du Crion – now labelled a wanted fugitive by the Republic, for his involvement in the Temple Bombing, though he had vanished in its wake – and the devaronian mercenary Vilarh Grahrk, who had acted as an intermediary and done most of the legwork in stoking the Yinchorri into their very unwise actions, supposedly on behalf of Du Crion, though the Yinchorri seemed muddled on that. Grahrk was also wanted by the Galactic Republic. He had _also_ vanished.

 _Is this really the work of one former, fallen Jedi’s greed and grudge_? Mace questions it. It ties up so neatly, but it feels…. It feels inadequate an explanation, for the damages done. On the subject of Du Crion, Mace is deeply pained, wondering how a boy raised by the Temple – trained by _Qui-Gon Jinn_ \- had journeyed so far from the righteous path.

 _To murder younglings_ … his steepled fingers lace together and clench, tightening into painful points against the back of his hands. The losses at the temple cut deep. A current total of 109 losses, 26 of them _children_. Hundreds more badly injured.

“Satisfactory, the answer is. For the Senate.” Yaddle speaks, a rasp in her voice that has both men looking to her, for that undertone speaks of _anger_. “Close the investigation, they will. To blockade the system, they have decided. Over, this uprising is. Consider it finished, they do. Completed our mission we have, and return home, we must.”

“Yes, Master Yaddle.” The two men defer respectfully, though it is clear that the wizened master is no more at ease with this than they are.

~*~

“Well, I avoided being stepped on, at least.” Tsui rasps with a touch of humor, sitting up in his bio-bed as Sian regales him with the recap of her adventures. “It sounds like they could have squashed me like a bug.”

“Only if you stayed on the _ground_.” Sian rolls her eyes, dismissing his insistence on playing meek. He was one of the most acrobatic combatants in their generation. Tsui offers a little smirk, but it pulls at the healing scars scrawled across his skin, and his hand drifts up, brushing the tight, rigid edges of it. The shiny blue-purple webbing across his body would stay, sealed in before he ever reached the med-bay by his own attempts at healing. Hyper-active scarring, the medical officers had called it, both dismayed and awed by it. His eye couldn’t be salvaged either, but Master Yaddle was already in contact with the MediCorps about getting him on a list for a biomechanical implant replacement. The list, however, given their financial circumstances and the current situation at the temple, was long. Being half-blind didn’t make him a priority.

Sian swallows, reminded of what she’d been ignoring. “Does it hurt?” She asks quietly, subdued.

“No.” He replies succinctly. “It just pulls. The muscles aren’t knitted together quite right.” He says, with simple acceptance of the fact.

Sian draws in a long breath through her nose. “Tsui?”

“Hm?”

“I’m really glad you came back.” Sian says, squeezing the hand she has yet to let go of since she sat down _._ Maybe he hadn't been completely successful, hadn't gotten the technique quite right, hadn't come out unscathed, but he _had_ saved himself. Sian would take that and be grateful, be joyous _. I’m really glad you didn’t die_.

His throat bobs, and he glances away in a shy fidget. “So am I.” He replies quietly, squeezing her fingers in turn.

~*~

Bultar stares out the viewport on an out of the way observation deck, sitting in preparation for meditation as she has been for the last half-hour, not meditating. Her shower-damp hair occasionally looses a drop down her neck or onto the shoulder of her tunics.

She’d really needed a water shower, after assisting with the recovery of the personnel from the carrier Master Windu had planted in the surface of Uhaniyah, the corridors of the wrecked vessel full of dust and steam and smoke and the reek of melted plastic and scorched metal. It had all permeated her clothes and clung to her skin, in addition to sweat, because the temperature of Uhaniyah was near boiling.

The blue stream of hyperspace plays over her face, fluid and brilliant, a whirling, impressionistic pattern that no masterpiece had ever recreated, no matter how the artist tried.

“Padawan Swan.” Yaddle small, quiet steps drift up behind her, her presence a banked warmth, like sun-soaked sand, a substantial, deep heat that leeched into everything it came in contact with.

Bultar takes in a breath, feeling a tremor work through her lungs. “Disciple.” The young woman murmurs. “I believe, Master Yaddle, that at present I am…. I am not a padawan.”

She has no master, after all.

The tremor in her lungs rocks harder, and she breathes until she can suppress it, until it melts away.

There were three paths forward, for a Jedi in her position. The first was to be Knighted – she was a distinguished Senior Padawan, after all, but she felt in her heart that she was not ready for that responsibility, that she was not fully capable of bearing that title upon her shoulders. She and Master Micah had been in no hurry to finish her apprenticeship. The second was to be accepted by a new master, to complete her training. The third, she supposed, was now to finish her education as a Disciple, until a new master agreed to take her on, or she chose a different path than Knighthood.

“Hm.” The sage master hums in reply, moving to stand by her shoulder. “Technical, that is.”

Bultar turns her head, looking to her when a small, warm hand gently touches her shoulder. Those sage eyes looks deep into hers, full of compassion and sympathy and understanding. Bultar feels something in her chest ease.

They’d collected Master Micah’s body. She would face his pyre back at the Temple.

So she did not yet have to say her last goodbye. Not _yet_.

“His teachings, forever carry, you will.” Master Yaddle tells her. “With you, he remains.”

Bultar nods. “I know.” She replies, lifting a hand from her knee and pressing it to her collarbone, to the place above her heart where she had always envisioned her connection to the Force residing. Master Micah had often rather irreverently joked that his resided somewhat closer to his stomach.

Bultar had never found it funny.

For some reason, now she does.

Master Yaddle sits with her awhile, neither of them really meditating. Just…. _being_. Remembering. Accepting.

“A sabbatical, you will be given.” She is informed, when their time both grows ling and runs short, approaching the core. “Before return to your studies, you do.”

Bultar looks down. “Master Yaddle, at this time, the jedi are…. So few of us can be spared.” The offer is generous, but a padawan of her experience was in more demand than ever. Bultar does not want to shirk her duty, not even for this. It would feel – selfish.

“A few days, spared, you can be.” Yaddle remarks impacably. “A task, too, can you accomplish, in this, while seek peace, you do.”

“A task?” Bultar inquires, surprised.

“To Alderaan, you will go.” Yaddle nods. “Peaceful, is Alderaan. Requested, they have, that found a Temple there, the Jedi might. A disused academy, they have in mind. Assess it’s suitability, I would ask of you, while convalesce, you do.”

Well that… Bultar considers, that she thinks she could do.

“I’d be honored, Master Yaddle.” Bultar bows her head, humbled by the generosity. “Thank you.”

Warmth envelopes her, as gentle as a cashmere blanket. “Care for each other, the Jedi must. Care for you, I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: eeah i know this is a short chapter, but I wanted to close the Yinchorri arc, I'm not ready to jump back to the Temple just yet, and Mandalore is begging for attention.


	46. Chapter 46

Arms crossed, face turned down, thumb and forefingers pinching the bridge of his nose between very furrowed brows, the _jetii baji’buir_ was the picture of beleaguered frustration.

Mavi kept her chin up, gaze straight, posture perfect with her bucket tucked under one arm, like a proper _verde_ , shoulder to shoulder with the shorter Serra Keto, who had her feet planted, her wrist clasped in her other hand behind her back in good _jetiise_ posture, and a growing twist of concern on her lips.

Mavi figured the pair of them would get a hard lecture one way or the other for stowing away on that ship, so she wasn’t about to start gibbering about it now that they’d been caught and delivered by one smug and threatening _Ad be Fett_. Mavi has a feeling the red-heads smugness comes mostly from amusement.

“Master Naasade?” Serra Keto leans forward on her toes, cool green eyes shaded in concern. “Are you alright?”

The cinnoman haired man – the _exhausted_ looking cinnamon haired man – takes a long moment before responding, blue-grey eyes finally cracking open to pin the black-haired girl beside Mavi with a look.

“You are not meant to be anywhere near the front lines.” He remarks flatly.

The padawan leans back, arms coming around to cross over her chest. “This isn’t the front lines.”

“You stowed away on a ship bound for _Concord Dawn_.” He retorts.

“You were _winning_ at Concord Dawn.” The padawan fires back.

The _Mand’alor_ , taking stock of his battle-gear at the galley table while this plays out, snorts derisively. “Close call.” He mutters.

“Padawan Keto-“

“We’re not useless! I know you don’t want us on the battle-lines, but you can’t just shove me in a corner like some scared little youngling. I’m a jedi too! Let me do something!” Her tone rises sharply, and Mavi fidgets at the threat of tears in her voice.

She hadn’t really expected to befriend the _jetii verd’ibir_ , that day she stepped up to see if she couldn’t learn something of her fighting techniques, but Mavi found she liked the younger girls nerve and temperament, and she could learn a lot from her. A lot more than she’d expected, actually.

“ _You’re a long way from Null, you know?”_

_“What?” She’d demanded, certain that was an insult if she’d ever heard it._

_Black brows went up, lips quirking in amusement. “Force Null. You’re pretty sensitive, actually. Maybe not enough for the Order – but you could get there if you tried, I think_.”

That had been a harrowing conversation, really. Mavi had not responded with grace, spitting back that she was no _jetii_ freakshow, that she was _Mandalorian_ and proud of it, and the icy civility she’d received from the other girl for the next several days had been downright bitter.

Then-

Well, then they’d heard about the Temple.

Mavi’s apology had been stilted and uncomfortable, and the padawan had accepted it with a grace that made the Mandalorian feel all the more ashamed. But they’d made by-gones, and Keto had had a hard drive under her skin since, impatient and bursting with the need to go out and do something, Something important, something with purpose, and Mavi had been right there with her.

So they’d snuck onto Bo-Katan’s ship, hoping to end up somewhere where they could be useful. Keto had tried to teach her meditation, to pass the time and keep her settled while they hid in the ship’s supply locker. It wasn’t so different that the technique’s she’d been taught to focus herself, or prepare her body for a fight – just longer. A lot longer. Mavi had never been so exhausted from just breathing before.

Naasade sighs and steps forward, placing his hands on the padawan’s shoulders and looking her in the eyes. “As admirable as your argument may be, I’m not letting you do anything with your head where its at, young one.” One hand shifts, reaching up to cup the back of her skull. “I’m sorry.”

Keto jerks her gaze away from his, over his head to the weld between the wall and the ceiling. “You’re one to talk.” She mumbles. “You feel like a tangled up bruise.”

He laughs. “Ah. I suppose I do.” He nods, a few loose locks of hair slipping over his face. “It’s been a very trying time for all of us.”

The thirteen year old girl looks back at his gaze, a steady blue-grey. “Joint meditation?” She suggests.

“Hm. Yes. I think that would be for the best.” He agrees. “But first…” That gaze turns on Mavi. “Introduce me to your friend?”

Mavi stands a little straighter as the jedi steps back from the padawan to look the young Mandalorian over, eyes pinching a little when he must recognize either her face or her red and yellow armor.

“Master Ben Naasade, may I introduce Mavi Var’de of House Mereel. She’s helping teach me what it is to be Mandalorian.” The young jedi states with a diplomats’ manners, but a fierce gleam in her green eyes, determination and surety. “And I’m helping her learn what it means to be a Jedi.”

~*~

Bo-Katan bails once she’d delivered the girls to her _buir_ and Naasade, deeming it safe enough after having given them a few hours to - what, Bo-Katan doesn’t actually know, but the Jedi isn’t losing his shit and her _buir_ looks fine, so she figured they sorted themselves out enough to function.

Her comm pings almost immediately after, and she darts back to her ship for privacy, heart suddenly in her throat. No news had meant waiting in horrible uncertainty, but if it was bad news – if it was bad news – at least uncertainty left her a chance, left her sister a chance-

Bo-Katan fights down her panic and delays the inevitable – funny, when just a minute ago she would have gladly clawed her way through the comm officers to get an update – by moving to the cockpit, where she can upload the data-packet and use the better equipment than that in her helmet. 

The first thing she opens is a flurry of clips – security cam footage with a bad angle of Satine standing behind Kenobi, something sparking against his helmet and then her sister, on the ground and covered in blood, the boy falling with her. Bo-Katan forces her eyes closed. She knew her sister was hurt. She _knew_ that already. More clips, hastily made messages and sound-bites, _Kyr’stad_ responding to the rumors, claiming that her sister was dead, that anyone who had to hide behind the jedi – the _jedi_ , who couldn’t even protect her – had no right to call themselves Mandalorian, to speak for their people-

Bo-Katan grits her teeth, a surge of hatred rising up. For that boy, for failing to keep her sister from getting hurt. For _Kyr’stad_ , for gloating about it, for herself, for having worn their colors once, for having been willing to fight for those people, those people, who would see her sister dead. Who had – who had assassinated Duke Kryze from the shadows rather than fight him in fair challenge, who had yet to issue a fair challenge to Fett, declaring that to issue him a fair challenge acknowledged him as a rightful _Mand’alor_ , and that, that they refused to do-

Another packet comes through, and Bo-Katan opens it as quickly as she can. It’s an audio-log. No image, a recording of an open-frequency broadcast. Its barely minutes old.

It starts with a tonal process, and crackling static, someone taking a breath before speaking, muffling the receiver.

“….. _this is Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi_.” She recognizes his voice. Bo-Katan feels every muscle in her body tighten, her fists clenching, jaw grinding, pulse thundering in her ears. Her eyes burn, her entire being narrowed down to this singular input. 

“ _I’m one of the first_ Manda Jetiise _in over six hundred years. I stood on stage when the_ Mand’alor _returned. I want you to know who I am. I want you to listen to me_.”

Bo-Katan is listening. With that introduction, she’d bet half the system would be listening before long. His voice is hard, a cool edge of anger there that makes her pulse quicken, dread gnawing at the back of her mind.

His breath crackles against silence.

 _“….. Are you listening,_ Mando’ade?”

 _Tell me, just tell me you jetii shabuir_! Bo-Katan wants to scream.

He says it.

Her ears ring, but he says it.

“... _Jorad’par_ _Satine Kryze is_ still alive.”

 _Satine_.

 _Satine_.

Bo-Katan bends over the console, tension flooding into shaken relief.

He keeps going.

“ _Kyr’stad is telling you otherwise. Kyr’stad wants you to_ believe _otherwise. Because if Satine Kryze dies, then the hope of a better Mandalore, a united Mandalore, dies with her. I want you to think about that. I want you to_ understand _what it means that Kyr’stad wants you to fight each other, wants vod to turn on vod, Clan on Clan, House on House…..”_ Another short pause, a steady breath, a crackle of static _. “She’s injured. I won’t lie about that. She’s hurt badly, or she’d be making this address herself. A lot of Mandalorians are hurt badly right now. But we are Mandalorians. We’ll endure this. We’ll overcome. Together, as one.”_ He sounds like he believes it, not with brilliant hope but with hard conviction. She listens to him breathe for half a minute. Then sigh quietly _. “I guess that’s all for now.”_ He says _._

 _“Have hope. Stay strong. K’oyacyi_.”

He signs off, and the muted crackling of the recording cuts into silence.

_My sister is still alive._

_My sister is still alive_.

Bo-Katan reaches forward and plays the message again.

~*~

Awareness comes to Satine slow and gurgling, with fitful glimpses and grasps of wakefulness that slips from reach before they’re truly realized, and then all at once she’s breaking over the surface, awake and alert. She can’t open her eyes at first, for all that her mind is keenly conscious, her limbs refusing to move, her lungs taking in shallow breathes, her heartbeat seeming too loud and slow in her ears. It’s like her whole body is trapped in mud, and no amount of struggling gets so much as her fingers to cooperate. Panic rises, sucking in her thoughts, but her panic does nothing for her sluggish heartbeat, for her light breathing, for the paralysis, the numb detachment of her body.

But a warm grip she hadn’t noticed moves from her wrist, leaving a chill where those calloused fingers had been and rises to her cheek, featherlight and gentle. Calm washes over her, warmth and comfort and reassurance. It soothes, and Satine slips back under.

The next time she wakes up, she feels clammy, dehydrated, cold and terribly weak. Her mouth is dry, her head is pounding, and the sluggish motor responses from her body offer up a faded throb of heat-tight-rawness from her arm and neck and chest that sets off warning bells in her head. She doesn’t try and sit up, though she feels like she could, and instead she blinks, and blinks and blinks again, eyes gritty and gummy. She lets out a thin groan, only for fire to lance up her throat and explode into bursting-white pain as she coughs.

A familiar hand touches her back – she’d rolled, in spite of herself, trying to curl up and cough at the same time, trying to get away from her own body. More familiar hands gently, but firmly, grip her shoulders. The pain slips away, as does the urge to cough, as if her brain simply doesn’t recognize the signals, the urge, to do so anymore, the strange lack of them feeling…. Artificial.

“Can she be given more pain management?” Obi-Wan’s voice murmurs over her head.

“You seem to be doing a pretty good job.” Sha’me’s voice replies.

“We’d prefer to let the sedatives wear off a bit more first.” A third voice interjects, young and feminine and unfamiliar, a depth in the undertones which suggests a non-human speaker. “And she’s right, you are doing a good job, Padawan Kenobi.”

“I hope so.” He replies, a moroseness to his tone that suggests – suggests –

It sparks in Satine’s mind, the memory seeming ultra-bright, the details blurry; hearing that awful crack and being certain Obi-Wan had just – and then seeing the metal slug, shattered on air. Walking out of the safety of the ship – _stupid, Satine! So_ stupid! – she’d just wanted to touch him, to make sure he really was fine – she hadn’t seen the slug that hit her, hadn’t felt it, at first, not until she was on the ground, until she was _choking_ on it-

“I am trying to calm you down, and you are not helping.” Obi-Wan whispers, bent close to her. Satine tries to reach for him, but that arm won’t cooperate, won’t – pain flares dully, quickly washed away. Satine stubbornly switches arms, until her fingers find his shoulder, down to just his silks, and then graze his cheek and tangle on his padawan braid. She grabs it, the motion clumsy, her fingers feeling thick and foreign to her. She ends up on her back again, which she thinks is more thanks to Sha’me carefully trying to make that happen than her own clumsy fumbling. The ceiling swims a little, her brain sloshing between her ears. She squeezes her eyes shut, nauseated.

“More fluids, I think.” The third speaker remarks, and Satine can hear shuffling.

“Thank you, Padawan Casra.” Obi-Wan remarks, his face turned away when Satine forces her eyes open. She doesn’t like this feeling, feeling like this – all scattered and drifty, her thoughts slurring and slipping past. Satine tugs on his padawan braid, which is softer than she’d expect, and he looks back, leaning over her, doing – whatever it was he was doing. Jedi things, she thinks.

The thought makes her want to giggle. The back of her mind tells her this is a terrible idea, that it would _hurt_ , and be mortifying besides.

She wants to say something to him.

His eyes are really pretty. That sharp blue edged in grey, flecked with green.

“Hi.” Satine manages, more a breath than a word past dry lips.

He smiles, and it’s a horribly fragile thing. “Hi.” He says back, and the smile gains strength, a dimple appearing in his cheek, the one that warps slightly and always would one of the more noticeable traces of the faded scar that had marred his face.

From another attempt on her life, she remembers suddenly.

A bright teal face appears suddenly next to his, with big, liquid dark eyes, and Satine – she is moved and Obi-Wan and Sha’me are both shuffled out of the way, and a medic comes in, an adult Mandalorian man who asks Satine questions and checks her vitals and has a whole conversation about her injury and then repeats everything with the teal-skinned nautolaun youngling beside him. Satine tries to focus, but things slip by, little slices of time skipping past her.

She holds on to the important details, she thinks. Most of them, at least. She’d been shot. The metal slug had split in pieces and torn through – quite a lot, actually. Muscle and veins and artery, perforating her esophagus and her trachea. She’d swallowed a lot of blood, inhaled a lot of blood, and nearly bled out. She was told bystanders had stepped in, and they had done a damn good job of stabilizing her – that if they hadn’t, she would be dead. She’ll get the chance to thank them. Apparently, they were still here.

Here being Phindar. They’d crossed an entire system while she was unconscious, hiding away with a Clan under House Betoya who had a land claim here.

The medic kicks Satine’s companions out, which Satine would protest but – but she is exhausted, and she doesn’t have the energy to refuse when he – Mij Gilamar, she tries to remember – tells her to rest.

When she wakes up again, Obi-Wan is there, if not entirely _present_. He’s meditating, legs drawn up in the chair, eyes closed, breathing deep and even and seeming to encompass the entire room.

Satine watches him for awhile, until her own thoughts start to drift – the extent of her injuries, the unfortunate amount of time between injury and proper treatment, the estimated recovery time – another day or two to be up and moving, another ten-day before she tries anything too strenuous. They weren’t exactly working with the best equipment or resources here. And that was on the premise that she neither fell sick nor developed an infection. With metal slugs… the chances of infection were a lot higher.

Ten days. At a minimum. Could she really sit by for ten days? What about her people? This war could turn in a day, in an _hour_ , she needed to be out there, she needed to be active, she needed to prove –

“Satine.” Obi-Wan was blinking at her, a sleepy-looking motion on an otherwise utterly serene face. He looks over her face, and the serenity cracks, shadows darting through his eyes as he looks down guiltily. “I’m sorry.” He says.

“Sorry?” She repeats.

“I’m supposed to protect you. I failed.”

Satine blinks at him, still a little fuzzy from the medication, but… in all her frustrated doubt and churning stress, not a thought had crossed her mind to blame him for this.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi.” Satine says impatiently. “I shouldn’t have stepped out of the ship. I let my – I let my feelings get the better of my sense, and – and we aren’t going to argue about this.” She says firmly, as firmly as she can manage with her voice faltering into a near airless rasp at times, the muscles pulling oddly and uncooperatively numb in turn.

His brow pinches, and he certainly looks like he wants to argue, but then he smiles instead. “Okay.”

Satine lets out a puff of air. Well _that_ was easy. She has the feeling he conceded more to keep her from being agitated than because he’s actually going to simply stop blaming himself – but they’d both perhaps been a little too absorbed, in that moment. He with his confidence and she with her selfishness.

His smile pulls a little, tugs oddly, and he looks away, dropping his legs back to the floor, leaning forward over his knees, a little closer to her bed. Her infirmary has the look of a converted bedroom, half-kitted out with storage units and equipment pulled out of a ship. She can see scribble marks on the wall under the durasteel counter, the shade of difference on the scuffed floor where a long-lain carpet had been removed. She hasn’t even been introduced to her hosts yet, but she’ll have to find an adequate way to repay them for their generosity, for taking her in in these dangerous times.

“You aren’t the only one.” Obi-Wan says quietly, out of the blue. Her gaze jumps off the floor, and his turns on her, his ears turning pink but his eyes clear and magnetic.

“What?” Satine demands, tired of having such a difficult time trying to trace one though to another. A breeze tugs on the curtains over the window, and light ripples over him, next to it. Gold and red highlights gleam in his hair, the color less intense than it had been when they were younger.

“Letting your feelings get ahead of your sense.” He clarifies, massaging his scarred wrist absently.

Satine’s not at her best, but she has a feeling – about his demeanor, about his careful tone. Her brow pinches. “What did you do?” She asks quietly.

“I didn’t.” He confesses, relief and tension both vying for their place in his tone. “Sha’me stopped me. But I almost…” He breaks her gaze, and she recognizes shame. “I would have killed them. If I had gone after them. If I had found them. For hurting you, I would have….”

She’s taken aback. And then she’s furious, she’s upset, the emotions crawling through her chest and bursting outward. “I wouldn’t have wanted that!” She hisses.

“I know.” He nods, meeting her gaze again before it flickers away, mercurial. He reaches up and tugs at his hair, displaying his own upset frustration. “I _know_.” His repetition bleeds apology.

Satine sinks, still struck by it, still appalled and aggrieved, but she doesn’t have the energy to maintain that kind of emotional rally. “ _You_ wouldn’t have wanted that.” She says for him.

“I know.” He repeats, shoulders sinking, expression painfully open. “But I would have done it.” He looks her in the eyes, a burning look there in storm-like depths of blue-grey, as if trying to impress upon her some meaning she didn’t understand-

 _Letting your feelings get ahead of your sense_ -

It clicks, with sudden clarity, that it wasn’t his anger he was talking about.

 _Oh_.

The realization rushes through her, warm and conflicted in turns. She feels like a silly little girl, the way her stomach tightens, the way her heartbeat hitches, the way something in her swoops and soars against every digressing thought that had ever tempered her own feelings, reminding her that he was a Jedi, he could never give her back what she gave away-

 _He is a Jedi_. Satine thinks, and is suddenly stricken by it. That wasn’t something she held against him – in fact, quite the opposite. That wasn’t just a title, wasn’t an occupation, a Jedi is what Obi-Wan Kenobi _was_. Was _and always would be_. Just as she was _Mando’ad_. She admires his convictions, respects his commitments and his faith. She would no sooner tarnish them or see them taken from him than she would cut away at her own flesh.

“You can’t do that, Obi-Wan.” Satine says, heart aching and resolve weaker than she’d like. _Neither of us can_ , she thinks. “You can’t break vows for me.”

“I know.” He says, and that looks in his eyes is still there. _But I would_.

It thrills her. It scares her.

She doesn’t _think_ she’s in love with him – She doesn’t think he’s in love with her. She’s not sure they know each other well enough for that, not sure love could come so quickly. But the possibility of loving him is so real, is so potent, that neither is she sure that there is much of a difference in it.

Her pulse pounds in her throat, and she curls her hands tight, the palms clammy, the grip weak. “Promise me.” Satine demands.

She won’t fall in love with him if it means changing who he is. She can’t do that. She _refuses_ to do that.

“I promise.” He utters, refusing to look away.

Satine stares at him, but there is no uncertainty there, no deception. Just clarity and resolve and burning potential.

“But you promise me too.” He says, surprising her, voice low and more demanding than asking. “Your people need you, Satine.” He reminds her fiercely. “So you promise me too. No more – no more risks like that. Not over me. Mandalore has to come first.”

She stares back at him, pulse quickening, stares back at him and feels stronger for the weight of his gaze, not burdened by it. As ever, Obi-Wan Kenobi is refusing to allow her to be any less than she is also.

Satine takes a breath. Her throat aches, dull heat radiating from her sore arm, itchy prickliness starting to creep out from under the numbing bandages.

“I promise.”

A smile breaks over his face, bursting with relief and something like joyous gratitude, and he lurches to his feet and leans right up over her bed, pressing his brow to hers, casting her in his warmth. Satine closes her eyes, feeling a smile grace her own face as she presses her brow back against his, basking in the steadiness of his presence, in the tenderness of the gesture, in her own relief, that here is someone who will not let her fail herself.

That is what Satine has perhaps always feared most, about love. That one day she would be forced to choose between her people and her heart, and that she would make the wrong choice.

 _Maybe I can love him_ , Satine thinks.

 _Maybe I do_.


	47. Chapter 47

“ – _jahaala, Murr’baji_.”

Obi-Wan pauses in the entryway to the kitchen, catching Padawan Casra’s sweet voice, surprised by her use of Mando’a, by the familiar shape of it flowing off her tongue, with the tight edges of a slight Krownest accent. Like Ronin Murr’s.

He’d been a little surprised when she’d turned up with the field surgeon from Fett’s forces, but he supposed she was as safe with them as she was on a base somewhere in the Mandalore System. In that safety wasn’t a promised thing at the moment, it was only the odds of danger that changed.

Shaking his head at his lurking, Obi-Wan steps into the kitchen, tapping his datapad off his thigh, as she and Murr say brief goodbyes.

“ _K’oyacyi_.” _Stay alive_. Her voice firms on the last word, insistent in an endearing – and aching - way.

“ _Baly’gar, jed’ika_.” _You too, little jedi_. Gruff, clipped, sincere.

It shouldn’t be as surprising as it is, he thinks.

“I didn’t know you spoke Mando’a.” Obi-Wan says lightly, stepping into the kitchen behind her. The jedi had quickly proven to be the earliest risers once they’d adjusted to the cycle change, and had taken to getting breakfast underway as a result, a courtesy to their hosts for taking them in.

“I’ve been in Mandalore since I was twelve.” The younger padawan replies, shrugging. At fourteen, Obi-Wan doesn’t imagine she’s grown all that much – still round cheeked, her head-tentacles stubby, her limbs sometimes terrifyingly malleable. Nautolauns reached puberty several years slower than humans did. Which meant she mostly still looked like she was twelve. Obi-Wan could relate. “It would be shameful at this point if I didn’t speak the language.”

Her reply is a polite obfuscation. Obi-Wan cocks a hip against the counter and crosses his arms, lifting a provoking brow. “Did you just happen to pick it up, or did he teach it to you?” He inquires.

She looks up from perusing foil packets of caf grounds and peers at him, a stubbornness in her soft teal face. “He taught me.”

They both knew that meant something more.

“He’ll make it hard to leave.” Obi-Wan says, utterly without judgement. He was hardly going to be the one to judge someone for chancing adoption by a Mandalorian.

“I don’t think I want to leave.” Casra replies, voice low but crystal clear. Obi-Wan blinks in surprise, arms loosening.

“You don’t want to be a Jedi?” He asks, his own voice dropping low, saddened by the prospect. She’d make a wonderful Jedi, a wonderful Healer.

Casra looks back at him, her big, liquid dark eyes conflicted. “It’s not that. I want to be a Jedi. I _do_. But I don’t have a master anymore, and… and Mandalore helped me. They protected me. They healed me. I want to help them heal too. I feel like – I feel like I _need_ to be here. I don’t know. I don’t – I just don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

Obi-Wan thinks about it, while the caf pot gurgles, and he and Casra split the task of prepping rice and washing eggs and veggies. The homestead Sha’me has settled them at was a collection of family homes, shed-barns, one large storage house and a landing pad next to a small lake, the communal property surrounded by a plasma fence. Breakfast was usually shared by several families, the clan all piling in with each other and rotating the chores. So feeding that many meant breakfast was prepared as a sort of brothy egg-based soup poured over a bowl of rice to make it stretch, with spicy basil and an assortment of vegetables and usually some local fruit. From what Obi-Wan understood, they had a small drilling and mining claim somewhere further east of the property, which was the intent of their settlement, but with such fertile land, propagating some agriculture to ship to the rest of the clan elsewhere had become just as much of a staple here a anything else.

“Maybe when things settle down, we can convince the Medicorps to outpost here – and convince the _Mand’alor_ to let them. It’s not like their services would go to waste. If we can get a Jedi Healer here… maybe you don’t have to choose at all.” He doesn’t know how likely that would be – for the Jedi or for Mandalore. Even after this war was over… there was still a great deal of rift between the two peoples. But nothing was accomplished by not making the attempt.

“You think so?” Casra asks, eyes shining with hope at the prospect.

Obi-Wan braves confidence, for her sake, and smirks. “Why not? Who says you can’t be the first _Manda Jetii Baar’ur_ in over six centuries? We’ve already come a long way.”

“A Mandalorian Jedi Healer.” She looks down, cheeks turning aquamarine in flushed pleasure at the bold prospect.

~*~

“I have regrets.” Mavi Var’de, so eerily alike in appearance to a young Cerasi of Melid’aan, if so completely opposite in temperament, mutters bitterly; breath puffing, muscles quivering, her bodysuit rolled down, the sleeves tied around her waist, her sleeveless undershirt splotchy with sweat.

“I forgot he was like this.” The battlemaster’s padawan replies tersely, her black bob disarrayed, her learners braids tuck to her neck, down to her lightest tunics as well, also miserably sweaty, if less off-balance, her muscles more used to this form of abuse.

Ben smiles benignly at them both, and receives withering, defiant glares in return. Having discovered that Keto saw fit to start Miss Var’de off with saber forms, he has them doing their basic katas. _All_ of their basic katas. Empty handed and _slowly_. Step by step. _Repeatedly_.

“Let’s try that one again, shall we?”

The _dismay_ in their groans. Ben perhaps should not enjoy that result so much, but really, the pair had asked for this. And Keto should have known – he and his padawan had taken her creche-clan to Illum.

“No wonder there were so many rumors about Obi-Wan being abused.” Keto grumbles, not quite beneath her breath.

The old accusation still stings, and Ben’s mood sours a bit. “He survived.” Ben mutters. Keto glances up guiltily, and the distraction makes her wobble, balanced on one heel as she was. Mavi had already fallen behind, and at the prospect of having to bring her one knee up to her chest, she stumbles out of the form, bending over braced on her knees. “I can’t – I just can’t.” She declares, out of breath.

She lasted longer than Ben had expected.

“Then you’ve found your limit.” Ben says simply, turning towards her. “Well done.”

She glowers up at him fiercely, but searching his face and not finding the sarcastic undertone she perhaps expected, the heat of it falters into awkward uncertainty. He doubts she’s ever experienced much praise for a perceived failure before, not with a rigid Mandalorian upbringing.

“Serra, can you finish that set?” Ben inquires, turning on the other girl. Sweaty, but jaw set determinedly, Keto nods sharply. Ben smiles, nodding back in proud acknowledgement of her efforts. “We’ll wait, and then we’ll stretch.”

The strawberry blonde girl still bent over her knees lets out an involuntary whimper and turns it into a growl. “How can such simple movements hurt so much?” She asks, half demanding and half pitiful. “We were going so _slow_.”

Ben smirks. “Serra?” He delegates the answer to the padawan, who huffs in exertion and works on gritting out an explanation on muscle exertion and the difference between slow and fast twitch muscle movement, and how it effects endurance and muscle memory while she finishes her set of katas. The explanation is simplified and slightly jumbled, but more or less correct, so Ben credits her for it and thanks her.

The two stowaways prove a satisfactory distraction, given that Jango had decided it was best if Ben not attend his meeting with the representatives of the _Mando’ade_ of Mandallia. Well, this local region of Mandallia, at least.

Jango had left it at that, so it was Ben who was left to muse whether the Mand’alor had done it because he wanted his people to see him without the _jetiise_ hanging around, or if he’d done it because he was worried that if something went wrong, Ben might lose control again. Either way, he doesn’t fault his best friend for his reasoning, even if he does find it slightly aggravating not to be where the action is.

And that realization digs under his skin. He _wanted_ to be a man of peace, damn it.

Well, the Jedi in him did.

But the Mandalorian in him, the General in him, the warrior – Ben fears he is more that man than the other.

He fears he always was.

He hears their return before he sees it, their shouting match preceeding them while Ben and the two teenlings sit around the table for lunch, having finished their stretches and cleaned up.

Bo-Katan’s prickly temper buzzes through the Force, streaked with sharp loathing and fear and frustration. Fett’s anger is curbed by temperance – a developing trait – and flat stubbornness, protective urges warring against perceived disobedience.

“Seems like we may have missed some excitement.” Ben glances at Serra, who’s eye are on the door, though she doesn’t stop eating. Mavi is watching her with some fascination, as Keto’s chopsticks are not once misplaced, though she isn’t even remotely looking at her plate. She doesn’t even drop a grain of rice or drip sauce down her chin.

“What?” Miss Var’de questions, looking up with a frown.

“They’re upset. Agitated.” Serra remarks, not exactly clarifying anything, at least until Jango and Bo-Katan reach the ramp of the ship, and their voices carry inside.

Injured, Ben adds mentally, when Bo-Katan stalks through, her upper arm hastily bandaged, her visor cracked, which he only catches a glimpse of before she nearly throws her bucket on the counter.

“ – when I’m not finished with you!” Fett stalks her in, tan face dark with anger, and Bo-Katan whips around, living up to her nickname. Jango crowds her space, looming, but doesn’t grab her. The teen doesn’t back down, getting right back in his face.

They’ve come a long way, Ben thinks, that Fett doesn’t have her pinned to a wall with an arm across her throat, and she’s letting him that close and that mad without trying to rip his eyes out of his head in retaliatory defense.

“You don’t understand what Death Watch does to them, does to their heads. How they think. What they believe in. I do. I knew I could handle him, and I _did_.”

“You were reckless! You almost got yourself killed! What the fuck have I told you about -”

“A lot more people could have been killed! What about that? If I had let you shoot him, he’d have blown that whole crowd to pieces!”

“They aren’t _you_!” Jango roars back, turning and slamming his fist into the nearest cabinet, denting the metal cover. Serra flinches, startled. Mavi carefully _doesn’t_ flinch.

Ben decides it’s best to intercede, at this point, and pointedly clears his throat.

Jango look over, and Bo-Katan takes the opportunity to shove past him, putting the counter between them and angrily dishing herself a plate, bristling with hostility and a sudden surge of doubt and confusion and roiling bitterness.

“Dare I ask what happened?”

“ _Kyr’stad_ sent a messenger.” Jango replies with black impatience. “With a bomb rigged to his kit.”

Bo-Katan slams a lid down. “They sent a fucking _kid_.” She snaps. “Just a half-grown fucking _di’kut_ teenager who didn’t have any other choice but to _believe_ in the cause, to live in it and die for it.” There’s an undercurrent of desperation to her rage, thick and engulfing; desperation and guilt.

Jango grinds his teeth so palpably Ben can _hear_ it. “So she took her jetpack, _tackled_ the fucking _shabuir_ , and took off with him.”

“Did he survive?” Ben inquires, wondering if this messenger might provide intel on the operations here.

“No.” Fett says shortly, still glowering at his adoptive daughter.

“But everyone else did.” Bo-Katan shouts ferociously. “I did what I had to do.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t.” Jango roars back, hand gesturing in agitation. “I’m saying you scared the fuck out of me, _Tukran’ika_!”

Bo-Katan’s jaw snaps shut, shock stuttering her expression before she locks it down, abandons her attempt at lunch, and stalks out of the room.

Jango growls wordlessly, gesturing after her in impotence, and turns his furious glare on Ben. The _Mand’alor_ lets his hands drop, and then, too riled _not_ to move, lifts them again, scrubbing his fingers agitatedly through his hair. “I’m gonna _murder_ that girl.”

“I think,” Ben remarks simply, “ that would rather defeat the purpose.”

Jango gestures a sharp warning finger in his direction, turning that threat on him. Ben raises his hands in tacit harmlessness. “Would you like me to make an attempt to speak with her?” Ben offers, knowing Jango was handling – an immeasurable lot, already, and a good deal of it things that Ben had put on his shoulders.

The mandalorian’s dark golden-brown eyes narrow. “ _Don’t_ make it worse.” He warns.

“I’ve handled more than one moody teenager in my time.” Ben snarks, and earns a dangerous look before promising; “I won’t make things worse.”

“Fuck.” Jango breathes out harshly. “Fine. I have to go deal with intel.”

“You should eat.” Serra blurts out. Jango stalls, pulling up short, and turns one of his hard looks on the girl, which has Ben perhaps deliberately blocking his line of site when he rises from the galley table, giving his _vod_ a pointed look that _this one_ was off limits to his temper.

“She is right.” Ben adds more gently, when Keto returns that hard look with one of uncrumbling resolution, bolstered by her certainty that her suggestion was the right one. Mavi hunkers over her lunch, arms braced on either side of her plate, doing a very good job of not even hinting at getting involved in either’s favor, which suggested that she rather agreed with her friend, but wasn’t about to say so to the _Mand’alor_. Pride and honor and creed would have her siding with him regardless of her opinion.

Jango grimaces and sullenly concedes, bypassing Bo-Katan’s abandoned plate for a bowl, which he haphazardly scoops congee into and then leaves with, no time to rest. Ben sighs, scratching at his beard, and moves to recover the plate. Even quaking with anger, Bo-Katan had been particular about portioning her plate, a fussy habit he hadn’t expected the girl to share with her sister. Ben prepares her food and a cup of tea before venturing towards her cabin on Fett’s vessel, which remained hers regardless of whether or not she was flying on it. His ship was the closest thing Jango had to a home, really, so that didn’t surprise Ben.

He glances back just before leaving the galley, getting a dubious look from strawberry-blonde haired Mavi Var’de and a thumbs up of encouragement from black-haired Serra.

He does not know whether to be inordinately fond or exasperated with them.

Sighing, he braves knocking on Bo-Katan’s door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
>  Jahaala - well, as in, 'I am well/ I am in good health'.  
> Murr'baji - so, baji references 'bajuur' - 'raising/ teaching', but qualifies as either teacher or mentor, possibly even guardian, so calling him Murr'baji implies a great deal of both respect and closeness.   
> Tukran'ika - little hellcat.  
> ad - child  
> ade- children  
> shabuir - bastard  
> di'kut - idiot/moron


	48. Chapter 48

The door swicks open, Bo-Katan standing there with a guarded expression on her face that quickly sours.

“You are not my _buir_.” She mutters scathingly, a flash of disappointment in her eyes before it hardens into suspicion at his presence.

“But I do come bearing lunch.” Ben points out, lips quirked up in a friendly manner. Her gaze drops to the plate and the cup in his hands, narrowing in consideration, still stalwartly blocking the door. Ben ventures a query. “Were you expecting him to follow you?”

Bo-Katan grunts a small concession, stepping back and allowing him in, pointing him towards her bedside table to set down his burden. She’s got her upper armor stripped off, a medical kit laid on her bed. She fights with the fasteners on her bodysuit, the material appearing to have been burned through and even melted in a few places around her shoulder. The arm clearly pains her, but she grits her teeth until she’s succeeded.

“He’s usually the one to patch me up.” She informs him through gritted teeth. “He doesn’t… he doesn’t usually leave me to do it alone.”

Ben absorbs that, deciding that’s a rather doting habit for Jango to have. 

“Leaving you with me is not exactly the same as leaving you alone.” Ben murmurs lightly, a touch amused. “Would you like help?” He inquires with sincerity.

“I wasn’t _asking_.” She snaps.

“No.” Ben concedes. “But _I_ was offering. Your _buir_ had went to brief with Intel. _Kyr’stad_ was given the opportunity to settle this reasonably. They’ve refused. Which means we have to do it the hard way.”

She flashes him a pale green glare, well aware of the situation, and, after hissing when the melted material of her bodysuit didn’t quite want to peel off her skin, finally gives him a tight nod and a warning look, acceding to accept his assistance.

Ben helps carefully roll the collar and sleeve back, using a little assistance from the Force to dull her pain when the material has to be less gently pulled free, and Bo-Katan insists on yanking it down the rest of the way once the injury has been cleared, leaving her in a thin sleeveless undershirt over a tight black chest wrap. This too has to be tugged free of the weeping burn marks.

“This isn’t an explosion injury.” Ben remarks mildly.

“He tried to run. I ended up putting my shoulder into his jetpack thruster.” She grunts out. “I didn’t give him the chance to detonate.”

“You tried to reason with him?” Ben inquires.

“I –“ She hesitates, then shakes her head angrily, eyes squeezing shut. “He was in too deep. He was beyond reason.” She turns and grabs the med-kit, shoving the small, hard case into his stomach before he can take it from her properly.

Ben looks over her face, but she refuses to meet his gaze. “It’s not the first time you’ve taken a life.” He says.

She says nothing, a muscle in her jaw ticking, her entire being bristling with anger and guilt.

“Is it the first time you’ve tried to save one and failed?”

“He was my enemy.” Bo-Katan spits, bristling with hostility and hurt. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ben lifts his brows, administering a spray for the pain. “You’re so angry because it doesn’t matter?” He presses doubtfully.

“I am _always_ angry.” She retorts with apparent disregard that Ben doesn’t buy.

“Hm. I had noticed.”

She glares at him, finally meeting his gaze, hers hot and defiant and brittle. Ben holds it for a moment and then drops his to his work, letting the silence drag, tutting at what he has to do next as he takes the necessary tools from the kit for picking and scrubbing bits of melted synth-cloth out of her skin. He takes a sanitized pad and pats the injured area down first, mopping up the oozing fluids. She grimaces, but more because she knows it should hurt rather than because it actually hurts too much. The spray would have taken care of that.

“That could have been me.” Bo-Katan finally admits, a hush of breath over her lips after a few minutes of him clearing the burns as gently as he can, the sound made flat, but fear lurking in the Force. Fear and shame.

“You think so?” Ben twitches a brow, wiping the tweezers clean on the pad. “I don’t. The scion of House Kryze? No, I think they would have had much bigger plan for you than a suicide run.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“No.” Ben replies. “But it bears keeping in mind. You were saved because Fett had the opportunity to save you. That boy…” Ben sighs. “Bo-Katan, that moment was not your opportunity to save him. That is not your fault.”

She looks away, jaw stubbornly set, face shaded by her bright red hair, and Ben cleans the wounds again.

“They did to him what they did to me. Do you think his family fights for us? What do I do if-“

“Bo-Katan.” Ben says firmly, and she stops. Ben takes a breath. “ _You could not save him_. But you saved other lives today, lives he would have taken. That’s how you live with this.”

This is why Ben far preferred fighting droids. It was so much less… messy.

Satisfied the skin is clear of debris, after a brief, rougher wipe down, Ben starts applying bacta gel and bandages.

“I think I finally understand what my sister feels. Why she hates this war.” Bo-Katan finally mutters, bitter. “I never – I never got it. But it’s _this_ \- she feels like this about every single one of them, doesn’t she? Every single one of _us_. Every _di’kut_ calling themselves _Mando’ade_. And she’s not even the one pulling the triggers.”

Ben wonders if this girl has truly felt so little _empathy_ in her life, and then he doesn’t. Bo-Katan grew up in trying circumstances, with the constant threats on her father’s life, her own, her sister’s. She was deeply loyal and deeply distrustful in turns. Empathy for outsiders was likely something she could not have afforded. That was true when she was her sister’s protector, when she was _Kyr’stad’s_ _verde_ , and it remained true now, as the _Mand’alor’s_ heir.

“I hate them.” Bo-Katan seethes, fists clenches. “I _hate_ them.”

 _I hate myself_.

She doesn’t say it, but Ben can feel it, a dark spiral deep inside her, wrapped up in that stark fury and sharp desperation and blazing determination that colored her every action and emotion.

Ben takes a risk, finished taping up the bandages and packing away the supplies. He reaches over and takes her hand in both of his, clasping tightly. She jerks, startled and suspicious.

“What?” She demands.

Ben radiates calm, radiates safety, as best he can, and smiles ruefully. “I would like to hug you, but I would also like to _not_ be stabbed.”

Her mouth parts slightly, glowering until absurdity breaks through and she looks away with a small shake and a weak laugh. “I’m not a child.” She huffs.

“Did I say you were?” Ben counters, still clasping her hand.

“You are _not_ hugging me.” She declares, looking back sharply, as if he might have taken her behavior for permission.

“Alright.” Ben accepts that readily. She doesn’t, however, reclaim her hand.

At least, not until her stomach starts growling, and they both recall why he came in here.

Ben hands her the plate.

“Thank you.” She mutters, shooting a furtive, speculative look at him as he goes to leave.

“You are welcome.” Ben replies, offering her a polite and very jedi bow.

~*~

“Vesh?” Satine inquires, poking her head into the room, heavily braced on the doorway, which she’d only reached with Padawan Orikhid’s assistance, and was only nominally left on her own – Orikhid had only gone s far as the kitchen, just a scant ten steps further down the hall. But Satine had wished to speak with the young design engineer on her own. He’d been badly shaken by her near-death, she’d been informed, and she feels guilty for it. He’d taken an incredible chance, and incredible risk, coming with her. If she had died….

Still, even with her out of commission, she’d heard he hadn’t been idle.

He looks up, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a cleared room, haphazard stacks of comm equipment around him cobbled together into some sort of transmission station, patched in to the homesteads communication grid, and from there to the satellite station above the planet, she’d guess, where it could bounce from relay to relay across the entire Mandalore sector.

A grin breaks across his face, full of stark relief. “ _Jorad’par_!” He scrambles to his feet and moves to help her around the mechanical boxes and power cells and cabling. Mij Gilamar had been very strict about her level of activity, and Satine is disgruntled to discover that even a short walk down the hall seemed to take entirely too much effort, and too much out of her. She sits gratefully, even if they are just sitting on the bare floor.

“You did all this in a few days?” Satine asks, impressed.

“Well, I was kind of already working on it?” The boy shrugs. “I just moved it from the ship to here. I thought – I thought – you’re the Speaker of Mandalore. People should be able to hear you. I don’t know. I just needed something to do with my hands. Kenobi didn’t mind.” He babbles a bit, and his dark brown hands fidget.

Yes, she’s heard about Obi-Wan’s little speech already. She’s heard it, and she could have kissed him for it had he been in the room. But he hadn’t been – Sha’me was, so Satine kept that thought to herself.

“And it can’t be traced?” Satine ponders.

“Nah. Well, not unless they’re really, really determined. But this kind of set up is, its not discreetly sourced. This homestead is tied in to all the others in one big network, so they all really ID the same. And that’s if someone can trace it back to this satellite in the first place. Kenobi helped with the signal routing, and he’s….weirdly good at some really odd things.”

“That’s…Obi-Wan Kenobi.” Satine replies neutrally.

They fall quiet, and Vesh fiddles with dials, tweaking wires and connections that Satine guesses likely didn’t need tweaking.

“Are you alright?” Satine asks softly, after a minute. He looks up at her, his springy hair bouncing, startled.

“Am _I_?” He coughs a little. “ _Jorad’par_ , you nearly died!”

Satine knows that. She reaches up and feels the bandages, the heat radiating from the dense ache underneath. It’ll scar. Gilamar says that they can probably erase it, in the future. Satine thinks she’ll keep it. It’ll be a rough and ugly mark from a rough and ugly experience. But none of her people are unblemished, are they? Not even the innocents. “Yes. I nearly died. I’m sorry. I’m the reason you’re here, aren’t I? It wouldn’t be fair of me to abandon you like that.”

To abandon any of her people like that.

She knows it’s not really abandonment – you don’t choose to let someone kill you, exactly, but… but a part of her feels a responsibility not to die, a responsibility not to let her cause die with her. Not to let the hope she gives people die with her.

He wrings his hands, looking at her like she is impossible, and then he looks down, shoulders sagging, head drooping low. Satine frowns, reaching for his shoulder and laying her hand there, concerned. He glances up, but the look in his eyes is shame.

“Vesh?”

“I chose to be here.” He says, a spark in his gaze, struggling against doubt and fear and burdens she can’t know the shape of. “My – my family….they…. we knew what was happening.”

“At MandalMotors?”

“At – no. Yes. I mean – all of it.” He struggles, and Satine thinks words don’t come very easy for him, that interaction doesn’t come easy for him. He’s an anxious young man. “But it wasn’t – it didn’t really affect our clan, you know? We thought - we were told – I mean, my parents, they – if we just kept our heads down… it didn’t matter who won the war. Our lives would go on. People would still need tech and vessels and jobs and it all just…. keeps going on, right? So it didn’t matter who won the war. We just needed to stay out of trouble.”

He toys with a cable, catching it in his fingers and snarling it up between them, mouth twisting in a hard line, brows furrowing deep. He has a somber face, she thinks, a serious one, and the expression looks hard when she has the sense that all he is feeling is lost.

“But it matters.” He blurts out emphatically, looking to her as if expecting to find a challenge to that. “It matters. I believe that.” He gets it out and heaves a deep breath, looking away again, dark cheeks flushing just a little bit darker. “That’s why I’m here.” He mumbles, and then nods, assured that he’d said what he wanted to say.

Satine feels her heart thump painfully, and she lifts her hand from his shoulder to his cheek, and makes him look her in the eyes.

“Thank you, Vesh.” She says sincerely, truly. “What you’ve done is very difficult, and very brave.”

The younger boy hunches, flushes even darker, and shies from her gaze, nodding, humming a nervous affirmative response. Satine releases him, thinking that perhaps her full focus and recognition may have been a tad stressful, but she had wanted him to know she acknowledged his struggle. How many like him were there, out there? Those who weren’t looking for a fight, but just looking to get by, those for whom the risk of choosing a side seemed too great to take?

She couldn’t promise him or any of them some great reward for risking not just their lives but their livelihoods, their clans. Just the chance of a better future. No guarantees, just the _chance_.

One he'd taken, at the price of his job and the risk of his kin and maybe yet his life, if her path ended badly. Satine could live for her cause - and that was a luxury, she realizes. She had nothing to lose that wasn't already at risk. She already knew she'd be dead if _Kyr'stad_ won. Her clan - what remained of it - would be ruined. Her House destroyed. But people like him - there was a chance they could scrape by, no matter the outcome. He was right, after all - people still needed tech and vessel and jobs. Which meant they needed people who could provide those things. So chances were decent they'd survive. Chances were decent they wouldn't, too. Chances were decent a boy like Vesh - young and strong as he was - would be drafted into _Kyr'stad's_ ranks and made into something the introverted, clever engineer shouldn't ever be made to be.

But it was all just chances.

Satine looks over the equipment strewn across the floor again.

 _You’re the Speaker of Mandalore_ , he’d said, hadn’t he? _People should be able to hear you._

She looks at him, a person she had somehow reached in her words or through her actions, somehow proven to that the risk, that the chances, were _worth_ it, and is proud and humbled, entrusted with the understanding of the _cost_ of his courage.

She knows who she wants to speak to, to speak for, today.

“Alright.” Satine nods, more to herself than anyone. He glances back at her, and Satine smiles, though it feels thinner than she’d like. She is so quickly getting tired, when all she seems to do is sleep. “Show me how this works, then?” She gestures.

He brightens, and this explanation is more vivid than the last, less strained and more certain, his motions enthused rather than anxious. Satine feels her smile gain a little strength, for that.


	49. Chapter 49

The _Haat Mando’ade_ have moved their mobile command – that is, their eclectic collection of ships belonging to various specialized and upper-ranking parties – to the eastern plateau where Fett held his assembly with the representative of the local Mandallians. This way, everyone knew where they were, they could take off easy, and they kept the target that was on them out of the city proper while they hunted down the _Kyr’stad_ cells inciting violence and launching shock awe attacks across Mandallia.

Master Naasade and the _Mand’alor_ return to the encampment on speeders, having responded to a tip about a crew that might be operating out of a nearby series of canyons. Serra looks them over, a little aghast, having chased after Bo-Katan when the call came in they were returning. Mavi huffs, catching up, and knocks her elbow into the padawan’s side. Serra shoves her back with one hand.

The entire team that went out is wet from the waist down, boots squelching, and they are covered, head to toe, in slime.

Beside Bo-Katan, Rav Bralor lets out a raucus bark of a laugh, the older woman utterly tickled by the murderous look on the jedi’s face.

“You find them?” Bo-Katan asks flatly, arms crossed.

“No.” Fett replies tersely, swiping in vain at his face, but his hand isn’t really much cleaner, so Serra doesn’t think it helps him much. “ but they are running out of places to hide.”

“N-hn.” The young woman grunts, and then jerks a thumb towards his grumbling, thunderous companion. “What happened to him?”

Half the go-team snickers.

“Leeches.” Fett replies dryly, earning a dirty, disgruntled look from his _vod_.

“Ew.” Serra wrinkles her nose. She appreciates all life forms, philosophically speaking, but the wriggly blood-sucking ones still made her squeamish.

“It would have been _fine_ ,” Master Naasade snipes, “ if _someone_ – “ He glowers “ – had listened to me. But no, they had to start _shooting_ them.”

“Hey, if a sucker as big as my arm starts _eating_ me, I’m allowed to shoot it!” One of the _verde_ pipes up, barely stifling laughter. The jedi gives him a warning look.

“They _burst_ , when they were shot.” The jedi master finishes snippily. “They burst, and it was _bloody_ , and _slimy_ , and _entirely unnecessary_.”

Fett rolls his eyes, and then eyes the welcoming party. A daring light enters his gaze, and he takes one sauntering step towards his daughter. Bo-Katan whips out her dc-series blasters in a flash and aims with threatening intent. “You are not coming anywhere near me!” She warns.

Fett smirks broadly. Serra thinks it’s cute how pleased he’s been.

She’d overheard a conversation the other day, maybe possibly eavesdropping when she spied the _Mand’alor_ cornering the jedi master.

_“What the fuck did you do?”_

_Master Ben had seemed baffled. “Pardon?”_

_“She_ hugged _me.” Fett says, his tone thick with disbelief and some manic energy Serra doesn’t understand. “She_ never _-“_

He’d seemed almost spooked, the first day or two, like she could somehow take the affection back, but then he’d been – like this. Occasionally insufferable.

They make their way back to their circle of ships, bonfire rings set up in a few places for barbecue, and for when the temperature drops a little too steeply at night, cargo crates off the nearest ships used as furniture, the open ramps turning into social spots during the day. Serra likes the community feel to it, even if its technically a military camp. It’s very different than the cordial familiarity and easy, courteous companionship of the Temple, the way the _Mando’ade_ seem to pile up together whenever they linger, jostling and boisterous and not really in harmony, but even the arguments and discordant tempers don’t seem to stop them from sharing a drink or a meal or a few stories. Sometimes they argue viciously, and they still flock together.

“We’re all _verde_ and _vod_ and _Mando’ade_.” Mavi had shrugged, when Serra had tried to understand. “So what if I don’t like the mando next to me? So what if they’re a real _shabuir_? We’re all just chasing life. We’re all fighting for the same cause. That _shabuir_ might save my life tomorrow.”

There is a small crowd around one of the ships they pass, and a few salute the Mand’alor when he pauses. They’ve got a radio on a crate at the end of the ramp, playing one of Duchess Kryze’s speeches – the newest one, Serra thinks. They’re infrequent, but they spread fast, and the response has been impressive in magnitude. Others pick up her speeches and add on to them, press their stories into them, answer the questions she asks of the people, responds to the call of her conviction. They’re everywhere now.

 _Kyr’stad’s_ been sending out messages too – contradictions, condemnations, calls to arms of their own. They make her out to be a silly girl with no real grasp of leadership, making pretty speeches with no substance. They call her a liar. They call her a puppet. They call her a traitor.

There are other speeches _Kyr’stad_ makes too, towards the Duchess. Cajoling, smoothly worded things, reasonable arguments, gently peeling back the layers of her own, drawing out the flaws and making them seem bigger, making them seem obstacles she can’t hope to surmount alone, and then asking her – if she is so willing to truly unite their people – to come to them. To help them make the _Mando’ade_ powerful again, to help them bring honor to Mandalorian tradition, to history, to help _them_ bring prosperity to Mandalore.

She refuses to engage, and they call her silence rejection. They call this weakness. They call this proof that her promises are fickle things. That she can’t be taken at her word. That she doesn’t really mean to unite Mandalore. Just those _she_ would deem worthy of upholding the image _she_ believes in, and what does a scared little girl who doesn’t want to fight think makes a Mandalorian?

Fett had actually responded to that one, when it wormed its way into his temper and lit his blood on fire. Ward had had to scramble to get him a transmitter that night, and the whole camp had listened to him make his statement.

“Tor Vizla does not get to call Satine Kryze a coward.” His statement had been blunt and forceful – Fett wasn’t much one for speeches. “Tor Vizla,” The _hate_ on his lip when he spits that name carried, even through the radio, “ does not get to burn her home to the ground and soak Mandalore with the blood of her clan and then call for _her_ to make overtures of reconciliation. Tor Vizla does not have to right to her voice at all – he is _dar’manda_ , and if I have my say when I join the _ka’ra_ , the stars will erase even the _memory_ of him.”

That had actually raised the mood around camp, but Fett had brooded over something for hours that night, staying out around one of the dying bonfires long after everyone else.

“ – _perhaps it is not my right to speak of this; many of you are right in that I am not, myself, a warrior. I have never falsely claimed to be. But I was born to and raised by Lord Adonai Kryze, I am the scion of a Great House of Old Tradition, and I was trained by the Haat Mando’ade; so my right or not, I_ will _say this: How we fight matters. Who and what we fight for matters._ ” Her voice stretches thin, doesn’t quite break. Emotion and injury, and those who listen to her have learned to recognize it. “ _Oftentimes more than the fighting itself. Do you know what you fight for? Do you know what you trained for? Ask yourself. Ask yourself, and see if you like the answers. See if you even_ know.” She pauses, takes a breath. “ _Our people should not be trained - should not_ fight _, to take lives. What honor is there in that? What pride? What understanding? Any petty shabuir can take a life._ ” The words are bitter, tired, scathing. “ _Our people should be trained to guard lives. That’s what I trained for. That is what I am willing to fight for. If I must fight – I fight for life._ ”

The speech cuts off there, and a new voice intercedes, building on that message – a vocal supporter of the new cause. The way they end their message is something Serra’s been hearing more of too – “ _Kryze Lives. With Kryze lives Mandalore. K’oyaci_!”

Bo-Katan turns a smirk on her brooding _buir_. “You’re gonna have to fight my sister for the crown.”

Fett doesn’t even glance at her. “ _No_.”

And then he stomps off, a contemplative Master Naasade in his wake. Hopefully to get rid of the slime, because honestly – the gunk was starting to reek.

~*~

Satine steps out the door, the warmth of the house quickly snatched away by a chill evening breeze. She makes the short walk to the lake, down the little road between the houses, and finds Obi-Wan doing katas there, sure movements and bare feet barely making ripples in the inch of water he’s standing in, the lake gently lapping at his skin. She rarely sees him without armor, so she pauses to watch, while he’s down to leggings and a thin, loose shirt, fresh from a shower no doubt.

She knows he and Sha’me and Padawan Orikhid have been making short excursions throughout the Phindar system. She knows they got up to trouble today, because they came back smelling like jet-fuel and blaster-fire and acrid smoke.

She could interrogate them, but she needn’t bother. Vesh had casually informed her that an unregistered depot had blown up that afternoon. No casualties reported, but judging by the size of the explosion – quite a lot of fuel lost to the blaze. Actually, she was fairly certain it was still burning. From the right spot on Phindar, they might even be able to see it with a pair of ‘nocs.

Tinted, fading light colors his hair rosy and his skin amber. His expression is serene, his body free of tension. He looks younger, without the armor, softer. More like the boy he was when they first met.

“See something you like?” He murmurs, not opening his eyes, not stopping his movements. His hair is starting to turn wavy, she notices, his padawan cut more a suggestion now than a reality. Sha’me had trimmed Satine’s hair for her, keeping it just below her chin, but no one had scrounged up a pair of clippers for the boys.

She rather likes his hair like this. “Maybe I do.” Satine replies archly.

He smirks cheekily, still with his eyes closed, utterly devoted to his katas, that dimple appearing so charmingly.

“Did you get information today, or was it all wanton destruction?” Satine inquires, looking away from him for a moment, warmth curling in her chest, fond exasperation running deep.

“I stripped the databanks. Orikhid’s sifting through it.” He replies.

Satine nods, not bothering to verbalize it just because he won’t bother to look at her. He’s a jedi. She’s pretty sure he can figure it out.

Financial records, vessel Ident’s, nav-comm data, locations markers – some of it might be useful to Fett, and that they sent on, but much of it Satine knew, would not prove it’s value until _after_ , until the fighting stopped and it finally came to digging in deep and uprooting _Kyr’stad’s_ framework of sympathizers and allies and silent partners, when it came to actually condemning and committing certain parties for their crimes. It would be a messy and long process, she had no doubts about that, but she wanted that intel _now_ , before _Kyr’stad_ had it in mind to burn their tracks behind them. She believed Fett would win. She had to believe it.

Together, they’d have to rebuild the government of Mandalore, revitalize the battered and broken infrastructure and try and develop a code that honored the Creed in a way that they _all_ could agree on. Or at least live with. It would be a long time before they’d be stable enough for honest trials, for fair elections. So Satine was starting _now_.

If she starts building that future _now_ , it has to be real, doesn’t it?

It’s a childish thought, but one is allowed childish thoughts.

A pair of giggles catches her ear, and she turns, smiling at two of the kids further down the lake-shore. They wave, and Satine waves back. The Betoya’s have been exceedingly generous. The families are very respectful of Satine, but more or less rabidly curious about her _jetiise_ companions. Obi-Wan and Orikhid and Casra have endured the endless questions of children and jibing speculation of teenagers and the leery skepticism and bald ribbing of adults with great aplomb. It amuses Satine that it is little Casra that seems to intimidate the adults most and Orikhid who seems to end up flocked with children. Obi-Wan, unfortunately, is left with most of the teasing.

Satine likes it here, with them. She has gone to every house and thanked every _Mando’ade_ here for their aide, for their protection, for placing themselves at risk for her. In spite of not being one of the Great Houses, Betoya is vast and varied and _strong_. The name itself implies a history of bounty hunting, but the Clan’s roots are mostly in trade, which is how a transient collection of families turned into a sprawling conglomerate of Clans through marriage and adoption and probably a few conquests, if everyone is being honest.

It would be easy to stay.

But Vesh and Ihu and Tama – the two medics that saved her life – remind her why she can’t. She could stay here, and be safe, but her people are out there. People like them, ready to step forward and do the right thing, if just given the chance. _Kyr’stad_ is out there, ripping her people apart. Satine needs to be out there too, rallying them together.

“I want to go back to Kalevala.” Satine says firmly, decided.

Obi-Wan opens his eyes, looks to her. He nods, finally easing out of his forms, just standing in the water as the light fades away and the lamps along the row of houses blink on, shining green. “Alright.”

“If any of my kin are still there, I want to find them.” Satine says, knowing the likelihood was slim. If any fighters had survived, they should have gone to Fett. The rest… maybe they found shelter under another House. Maybe, but Satine knows that those Houses who could have sheltered them also stood by, continued to stand by, while Tor Vizla had decimated her kin.

Bitterness stings in her throat, and Satine shakes her head. She’d approved of neutrality once, hadn’t she? Believed that the Neutral Clans refusal to fight would end this war more readily – if everyone just _stopped fighting_ – but she has been wrong. She has been wrong. In a different arena, perhaps neutrality would be better option, but there was a difference between refusing to take a side and simply looking the other way.

They had looked the other way, when Vizla had executed Clan Kryze for the whole sector to see.

Satine’s fingers find her temples, and she scowls down at her feet. Perhaps her thought were too colored by loss, too biased. Perhaps there had not been the maliciousness in the act that she sees in it now, perhaps they had not had the chance to act, when Vizla struck, but….

But in her heart, she holds them accountable. Their Houses have stood side by side for centuries, and in her darkest hour, they had failed to act.

“Satine.” Obi-Wan is in front of her, suddenly, hands gently taking her own, pulling them down and clasping them in a warm grip before his arms come around her shoulders, hands splaying across her back, brows pressed together, so suddenly enveloping it is almost overwhelming before she relaxes against him, feeling tension fade from her skull, from her jaw and her shoulders.

She’ll go to Kalevala. Look for survivors. And she’ll ask those Houses if they still thought their neutrality was worth it. She’ll look them in the eye, and she’ll make them tell her what it was they stood for that made it worth having simply stood by.

Some of them, she does not doubt, will stand firm. But some of them, surely some of them would side with her? Would stand with her?

And some, some, she thinks, would fracture from within. Individuals would choose sides.

 _Those_ Houses would never forgive her for that. Her name carried more than one blood feud already for having fractured other Houses in the past, breaking Clan loyalties.

Satine traces the golden lilies on her _beskar_ in her minds eye.

 _It’s a price I’m willing to pay_ , she thinks, and lets the realization of that sink into her. She’s changed. She keeps changing. Sometimes that makes her feel strong. Sometimes it scares her, how much she’s changed.

Satine squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her brow a little harder against Obi-Wans.

 _I’m learning who I really am_ , she thinks. _I’m discovering what I will and won’t do, when push comes to shove_. _I’m discovering how much I am willing to give and take for what I want_.

It’s not the experience she expected it to be, self-discovery.

“Satine.” Obi-Wan mouths her name again, and then tips in, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. She moves slowly, still half-enraptured by her thoughts, and wraps her arms around his neck, curling into his warmth as the evening air gets colder, the breeze coming off the lake. He turns his face a little, and she can feel his smile curve against her cheek. “Do you want me to carry you back?” He murmurs in her ear.

“I don’t need to be carried.” Satine mumbles, not actually willing to move.

“Is that what I asked?” He teases. Satine opens her eyes and leans back a little, blinking at him. He’s very close and entirely too pretty for his own good.

“You _dropped_ me last time.” She accuses, letting herself be distracted.

His smile breaks into a grin. “I _apologized_ \- you know what-“ He ducks and scoops her up, and Satine clings because _really_ – “ -practice makes perfect.”

“You, Obi-Wan Kenobi, are incorrigible.” Satine grumbles, feeling her mood brighten regardless.

He hums, shifting his grip, and presses a kiss to the edge of her brow this time. “And you, my dear Satine, are beautiful.” He replies cheerily.

She feels warmth rise through her face. He’s getting better at that – practice, after all, does make perfect.


	50. Chapter 50

His skull is ringing.

Jango groans deeply, forcing his eyes open and getting a blurry wash of pale sky and smoke overhead, almost too much for his retinas even through the tint of his visor. Blaster-bolts spark across his vision, and it takes him a moment to realize the explosion knocked him off the cliff. What he’d hit that knocked his jetpack out of commission however-

A brilliant flare of copper, and he sees Ben offer a jaunty salute as he steps up to the edge of the cliff and leaps off.

Another beautiful explosion, dust and fire sweeping through the air, and someone whistles appreciatively through the comms.

He can hear Ben land near him, more by his lightsaber than his boots, and turns his head. Oh, that aches. The jedi is knelt next to one of their _verde_ – that must be who Jango hit, when the explosion knocked him back – wrapping lightly on their orange bucket. The _verde_ offers a shaky thumbs up, groaning, and the _jetii_ smiles, patting him on the shoulder.

Next thing Jango knows, Ben’s face is right above his, sans bucket, and he’s attempting to be gentle in getting Jango’s helmet off.

“ _Gebi tracy’gaanar, vod_.” Ben smirks. _A bit too close to the fireworks there, brother_.

Jango grunts, jerking a hand at the _vod_ next to him. _Blame him_.

He gets a rude gesture for that, and Jango lets it go. He did knock the poor bastard right out of the sky with him, so fair is fair.

Ben smirks at him, shaking his head and running his fingers carefully around Jango’s skull. He can feel the wet in one of his ears, so the concern is valid. Then he starts running his hands down Jango’s chest and torso, and Jango lets out a gargled chuff. “Gettin’ handsy, Ben.”

That earns him an amused look, before blaster-fire makes all three of them tense, listening as it echoes through the canyons maze-like passes, but it stops a minute later, and their people report in that it’s taken care of.

Ben turns away, donning his bucket to speak over the comms

High pitched noise drowns out Jango’s hearing on one side, accompanied by sloshy ocean sounds, and he grimaces, girding himself before sitting up.

Oh. Yep. It hurts.

Ben turns to him quickly, popping his bucket back off. “They’ve got clean-up handled here, this cell is down to stragglers. We’ll go back.”

“You giving me orders?” Jango mutters, feeling bile creep up his throat as the _jetii_ helps him to his feet. His orange-armored _verde_ gets a hand up to, moving slow and stilted, but at least he can stand under his own power. Jango thinks he probably could, but he doesn’t want to fall on his ass in front of his _verde_ if he’s wrong.

He’s fairly certain he’s bleeding internally.

The medics hold on to him for ten hours. No surgery, thankfully, but more injections than he can count, and they’d completely immobilized him while the treatment left his insides hot and itchy. Luckily, he’d fallen asleep – and he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that that happened just as Ben ‘stopped by’.

He wakes up in the chilly dark of night, a few guidelights left on the in the infirmary shuttle to see by, and to Bo-Katan passed out on the bench across from the bio-bed. She’s got a blaster tucked under her cheek, pressing lines into her face, and her red hair is all askew. Jango carefully folds off the bed and reached under it for his bucket, using the display to snap a holo-pic.

She’s not a child. Not at twenty, not having earned her armor and survived _Kyr’stad_ and fought this war. She’s not even all that much younger than him. But she’s his _ad_ , and the _consuming_ protectiveness and care and worry he feels for her grips him hard, at times. At moments like this.

He thought taking her in would be – be more like training a younger _verd_.

It wasn’t.

Everything about her crept under his skin; all her spite and vulnerabilities, all the things that pissed him off and all the things that made his head go quiet, made his stomach drop, until he was so spun up he couldn’t think straight. He’s felt pride before. Not like this, not where it makes his head giddy and his chest hurt for trying to contain it, when she proves herself to the others, when she gets that fire in her eyes and that cool confidence on her face, when she first called him _buir_. And every time after. And he’s felt fear before, but the kind that pricked at his mind and tore at his breath, not – not the kind where it just thoroughly _guts_ him, when she gets hurt, when she retreats inside her head and her eyes go dull or when she cringes inside her own skin and lashes out not just viciously but _cruelly_ , maliciously, because _she’s_ scared.

She’s difficult and she drives him crazy, but she’s stubborn and clever and sometimes fragile and sometimes so passionate and emboldened he can see her in his place one day.

If he does _his_ part right.

It’s the adoration that really gets to him. The way she can make him so damn angry and so damn _fond_ at the same time. The way she can grate on his temper and he can still find it amusing even when he’s swearing blackly because it’s _not_. The way seeing her soft like this or peeved in the middle of some mess or even pouting when she cooks and it doesn’t turn out how she wanted or her gear didn’t quite come clean – it creeps up in his mind when she’s _really_ gone for it and he’s ready to shake her or hit her or lock her up or kick her out to go _fuck up somewhere else and fuck over some other di’kut shabuir-_

And it all just stops, for him. Sinks right through him like the worst damn exhaustion he’s ever felt and he’s left staring at her trying to figure out how to fix the shit she’s broke even while she’s about half a breath away from making another attempt on his life, or half a breath from tears – which was almost the same thing.

There are still days when he locks his door because he thinks they’re doing alright but fuck was it riding a fine line and – and he _locks his door_ because his adoptive daughter, he knows with absolute certainty, is fully capable of _murdering him_ for his title – and he’ll _laugh_. Like its _funny_.

She tests his _ka’ra_ damned sanity, is what she does. He’s got too many people in his life who do that.

She'd hugged him. She’d skulked up sideways to him when he’d finally got back from making the rounds with his commanders and his intel officers and the holo-calls to other operations and was dithering between the galley and the ‘fresher, trying to decide between a shower or dinner. He’d eyed her a bit warily – they hadn’t last parted well, after all – but he’d held still as she forced herself to walk over, a little pinch between her sharp red brows, disgruntled, and her pale green eyes had been fixed somewhere down and to the side when she finally just sort of – leaned into him, one arm coming around his ribs.

He had actually stopped breathing, more completely unsure of himself in that moment than he’d felt in years. Then he’d hugged her back, expelling a breath past her hair and reminding himself at the last second not to crush her in the scoop of his arms; heart pounding like thunder, feeling like a storm was breaking over his skin, all charged relief and broken tension and things he can’t even name.

She’d borne it for about ten seconds and then peeled off, taking a step away and giving him a discerning look, like _he’d_ been the one to do something unexpected. Then she’d turned with a slightly sulky, puzzled look on her face and stalked off, and Jango had stared after her until his brain kicked back in gear and he went to track down Ben, wondering _what the fuck_.

He hadn’t gotten a second one yet, and he wasn’t sure exactly what any of it meant, but – it felt good. It felt like something had shifted in the right way.

His bucket clinks when he sets it down, and she flinches; eyes flying open, grip on her blaster tightening.

Again, Jango feels that misplaced amusement.

“ _Tukran_.” He calls softly.

Her eyes narrow, first in threat assessment and then in dissatisfied health assessment, her grip on her blaster relaxing as she sits up, rolling her shoulders and putting her hair in order with a few deft touches. “Medics said you were good to go when you woke up. Eat light, don’t take any hits to the abdomen for a few days, and expect to be sore.” She reports tersely.

“Concussion?” Jango inquires. “Rocked my skull pretty hard.”

“No brain damage.” She replies, rolling her eyes. “Ruptured ear drum. Standard treatment, should be fine in a few days. It’s assumed you know the drill.”

Jango grunts an affirmative and sits up fully, testing exactly how sore he’s gonna be.

Not as bad as expected.

He still grimaces.

He doesn’t bother re-donning his armor – he’s only moving from this bed to his own, and Bo-Katan does him the favor of crouching to collect it.

“Lin Betoya showed up.” She mentions, as they step out into the frankly cold air, the wind whipping up a bit. “Says you called her in?”

Jango grunts, still trying to acclimate to the ache pressing at the bottom of his lungs, the uncomfortable twinging low in his gut, the slightly mushy feel of his muscles, and the muffled hearing out of his left ear.

“Yeah.” He utters, glancing down with a frown at the armor in Bo-Katan’s hands. “Yeah. I think it’s time for new paint.”

Bo-Katan looks at him curiously, her expression open enough to be soft, making her look younger. Then a shadow of understanding enters her eyes, and she looks a way, everything tightening around the edges. “It’s about my sister, isn’t it?” She says.

“It’s about Mandalore.” Jango replies, tightly aware that Satine was a complicated subject to broach with Bo-Katan.

“Is there a difference?”

The question comes out bitter, and even Bo-Katan sees to realize that, shoulders tightening. “All of this – this all wasn’t supposed to be on _her_.”

 _On my little sister_ , he hears, in that declaration, guilt and anger coloring her tone.

“You can’t fight her battles for her, Bo-Katan.”

The looks she flashes him says _the hell I can’t_. And then it fades.

“No.” She admits. “I can’t. I walked away, and she’s been fighting them for herself ever since.”

They pause outside his ship, and Jango weighs the risk and takes the chance to put his arms around her again. She startles, but she doesn’t drop all his shit to shove him off, so.

He can’t protect her from the war inside her head any more than she can protect Satine, but for a moment – for a moment, he can offer her shelter. “She ain’t alone, _Tukran’ika_.” He says. _Neither are you_ , he wants to say, but he can’t press too much. “We may not be side by side, but we’re all in this fight together.”

Bo-Katan – growls. All frustrated tension and self-condemnation, though for the momentary sense of weakness or for her decisions, he doesn’t know. He draws back and she marches in the ship first, not looking at him.

Jang sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.

 _Kids_ , he thinks. He glances up at the night sky. Somewhere out there, he imagines Jaster Mereel had to be laughing his ass off.

~*~

Jango had wanted to see Lin Betoya.

That hadn’t meant he wanted her bounding up the ramp of his ship and pounding on his door just before the first light of dawn.

When he finally drags his sore, sorry ass from bed and opens the door with a snarl, however, it’s Ben and a steaming cup of caf waiting for him, and Jango frowns blearily for a half-second, confused.

“I interested her in breakfast.” The _jetii_ smirks, clearly aware of his confusion. “That distraction might last a few minutes.” He presses the cup of caf forward, and Jango takes it with a heartfelt but muttered thanks.

He gulps half of it, fetching a clean shirt – concordian silk, since he has to turn his armor over to Lin for a few hours – and jacket. Ben leans into the frame of the door with entirely too much suggestion while Jango strips off, revealing more bruises than anything else.

His _vod_ was a fucking tease when he has it in mind to be.

Jango scowls at him, chugging the rest of his caf so he can manage to put on pants. “Any reason you’re so damn chipper?”

“Serra gave Miss Var’de her lightsaber to practice with – which I strictly forbid them from doing – so they decided to do this while I was sleeping. Miss Var’de managed to smack her in the face with it. They are both currently attempting to meditate.” Blue-grey eyes shine with amusement. “While in handstands.”

“At what point exactly did you catch them?” Jango grunts, finding his shirt to be more of an endeavor than it ought to be.

“Oh, I was aware of what they were up to the moment they snuck out of the ship.”

Jango snorts and slips past Ben for the fresher.

When he emerges, Ben has disappeared, likely to supervise their two little stowaways, and he finds Lin in the galley, a datapad and drifts of flimsiplast scattered over the table around her cup, a stylus dancing in her fingertips. The datapad projects a few images – armor pieces and sketches of designs and pictures of references.

He halts a single step into the room, because she’s in her _beskar’gam_.

She’s in her _beskar’gam_ , red on red on red, with black gloves and lower vambraces, and the grey and silver skeleton of an entire mythosaur coiled around her, standing out in high relief. Propped against the table next to her is a long handled _beskar_ forge-hammer, and he has no doubt half his _verde_ would die to get their hands on it. Any mando knew their basic welds and smithing, but to carry a forge-hammer as a weapon was the mark of a master, of a true craftswoman.

He recognizes the details carved into the handle too – that hammer belonged to her mother, before her.

He swallows tightly. “That is not the paint of Clan Betoya.” He says.

She looks up, powder-ink smeared in her chin where she’d touched her thumb to her face, slanted eyes deep and warm and striking, like shriek-hawk eyes, pinning him with a look. “No, but I am not a daughter of Clan Betoya.”

Jango stares, and she snorts. “We hid to survive, and they sheltered us. We’re family, and I took their name because mine was a death sentence. But I’m not hiding anymore. So I’m taking my name back.”

His legs unlock and he steps forward, and she stands. They clasp arms, and that hard look in her eyes melts in relief.

“It’s good to see you again, Lin Mereel.” Jango acknowledges her. She smiles, a look that curls into her face.

“ _Mand’alor_.” She bows her head briefly, squeezing his arm.

But only briefly, and then she’s jerking him over by the jacket and slapping designs down in front of him, aggressively informing him to make himself very clear on what he wants and why.

He looks at the armor she’s stolen from his room, the glaring gold mythosaur skull, marked for his vengeance, the mourning purple, for his loss, the muted blue that against the grey is now too reminisce of _Kyr’stad_ , tarnished by it. Even Bo-Katan had given up the blue bodysuit for dark grey, feeling it too uncomfortably similar.

He draws in a breath, lets it out, and teases one slip of flimsiplast out of the rest, the sharp relief of three Mandalorian lilies in burnished gold.

 _What we fight for. Who we fight for_.

“Start with this.” He tells her.


	51. Chapter 51

Silver on grey over a black bodysuit. Integrity, discipline, justice. A rippling pattern of red, orange, yellow and gold on his lower vambraces, burning like fire – honor, passion, loyalty, vengeance. Maroon gloves and maroon edging around a deep garnet visor for power, a reminder, and maroon on his paldrons. The tri-lily insignia of a better future on his right shoulder, the mythosaur skull of Mandalorian history on his left.

“It’s flashy.” He grunts.

“You’re the fucking _Mand’alor_. When people look at you, they should _see_ the _Mand’alor_.”

Jango’s mouth twists, not in disagreement, but…

“When I looked at the _Mand’alor_ , I saw my father.” Jango says quietly. Lin’s attitude quiets. “I thought my duty was to live up to his legacy, to carry it forward.”

“We all loved your father, Jango.” She says softly, arms crossing. She’d been Jaster Mereel’s bratty young cousin once. A lifetime ago, closer to Jango in age than to his adoptive _buir_. “But if a man’s son is only a copy of him, then that man has failed.”

Jango looks at her sharply, and she tilts a hand – she’s not looking to insult anyone, she’s not looking for a fight. “Our children aren’t meant to be copies of us. They’re meant to be better than we are.”

She turns and picks his left upper vambrace off her work-table, handing it to him. Over the silver-edged grey is an inscription in dark blue-green, a blend of reliability, duty, and healing.

 _Urakto’vor. Ijaat. Suvhaa’it. Cun Oyay_.

 _Adversity. Honor. Enlightenment. Our lives for Mandalore_.

“This is the way, _vod_.” She says quietly. “We go forward, or our people go nowhere, and Mandalore will fall.” Her mouth twists in pinched humor, and she gives his shoulder a light punch. “And you know that already, or I wouldn’t be here at all.”

Jango reaches for the pauldron, the mythosaur sigil, and lets his fingers trace over it. He has a lot of names buried under that bright gold, a lot of memories. He knows she right, but he can’t stop the part of him that lingers among his ghosts, that looks at stepping off the path his _buir_ laid down and forging a new one to be some kind of – of insult to his memory.

Lin sighs, mutters something beneath her breath, and leaves him.

A minute later, Ben arrives, and Jango can put two and two together.

“I don’t need to be minded.” He snaps. “I just need a fucking minute.”

Ben doesn’t say anything, just steps up to his shoulder and looks over the armor.

“Artistic.” He remarks, after appreciating it for a moment.

“Flashy.” Jango mutters.

Ben lifts a cinnamon brow at him. “Yes. Because not once in your life have you ever stood out.”

Jango gives him a dirty look, flickering a glance down to Ben’s own scuffed but still vibrant paint job, the two suns blazing across the left side of his chest, the churning sandstorm down his arm, Jango’s mark on his pauldron where his Order sigil should be.

But then, at least when Ben was in his tunics or silks under that armor, the profile of his colors all blended together. For Jango, that grey and silver over black was stark, to say nothing of the brilliant fire of the lower vambraces.

“You’re not a simple bounty hunter just trying to make a living anymore.” Ben remarks. “You’re the King of Mandalore.”

Jango sighs at that, scrubbing a hand over his head. “Right.” He mutters. “Let’s get this on, then.”

Ben helps, though Jango doesn’t need it, or the _jetii’s_ somewhat ceremonial manners as he does so, but he gets the feeling that Ben is making a point, and Jango’s not going to give him the satisfaction of calling him on it.

He’s not setting out to make a show of this, but Bo-Katan, Var’de, and Keto are all waiting on the ramp, and he’s not sure who is teaching who sabacc. Mavi Var’de’s quartz grey eyes go wide and light up. Keto gives him a once over and smiles. Bo-Katan – Bo-Katan gets to her feet and crosses her arms, scanning him with that piercing sharpness she had that was too damn much like Adonai’s gaze. She nods, just once, and Jango feels everything in him ease at the small spark of pride and awe in her eyes.

Alright, so maybe Lin’s work wasn’t so bad.

~*~

Obi-Wan stares hard at the closed the door in front of him, shares a tight look with Orikhid, whose utterly neutral expression does nothing to hide the fact that his lethorns are bunched with tension and disapproval, and then turns on heel. He sets his feet, clasps hand over wrist behind his back, and offers a perfect diplomatic bow to Satine.

“My lady, I do believe we’re done here.”

Her brows furrow lightly before she forces her expression smooth, but her sharp silver-blue gaze is no less piercing and unamused. “O- Padawan Kenobi, they’ve only asked us to wait a few minutes.” She corrects herself quickly, just as aware of their present setting as he is.

Obi-Wan stiffly rises back upright, looking her in the eyes.

“The Speaker for Mandalore should not be left standing at the door like the envoy of a lesser House. Nor should be the Lady of House Kryze.”

Satine’s posture tightens with sharp dignity, but her eyes shadow.

“House Kryze is broken.” She whispers, too low for any observers to catch.

“Not while you live.” Obi-Wan replies, just as quietly, and steps forward, offering her an escorting arm. They’re halfway down the glass steps before someone scurries out.

“Lady Kryze! Lady Kryze, just a few moments, please!”

Satine turns, but her feet don’t move. She eyes the messenger, who is not at fault, really, for his Lord’s poor manners.

“The correct address, _mando’ad_ , is _Jorad’par_.” She replies with cool civility. “I came to Lord Halon’s House first as a courtesy to its standing. If he cannot pay the proper courtesy to _mine_ , then I will take that with the insult it is due.”

With that, she turns, and Obi-Wan escorts her as she descends the stairs. It’s a beautifully temperate day – being inside a city-dome, it was almost always a perfectly temperate day, and Satine bypasses the shuttle that took them here so that she can walk. The shuttle pilot follows a little ways, and Obi-Wan can sense mild distress – they had been very excited once they realized who it was they were flying – but eventually it peels away from the streets and descends into the transfer, seeking more passengers.

Obi-Wan clears his throat. “So…. so much for non-violence.”

“Beg pardon?” Satine looks at him, incredulous, and Obi-Wan grins. 

“That was _brutal_ , Satine.”

“It was perfectly acceptable diplomacy.” She retorts, cheeks coloring faintly. “Though I thank you, for reminding me that I am - that I stand for more than myself. I can forgive much on my own behalf, but …”

“But to forgive such insult against the people you stand for is unacceptable.” Obi-Wan finishes for her, and she nods.

“He really wouldn’t have made us wait long, you know.” Satine remarks.

“Long enough for someone to see it, though, I imagine.” Obi-Wan replies. Satine’s expression doesn’t change, but her fingers dig into his elbow in their own sort of grimace. Obi-Wan looks around at the clear upper streets, the towering glass buildings. The Kalevalan domes were the basis upon which Sundari was built, but they were far, far older. They didn’t have quite that same feel of sterile cleanliness, of beauty fixed under glass like a butterfly collection, still and stifled.

Even so, up here, everything seemed rather…pale.

“Lets go find some color.” Obi-Wan remarks.

“If by color you mean people who really _would_ rather speak to me…” Satine muses. “Where did you think I was going?” She tilts her head towards the nearest public transfer lift, and Obi-Wan shrugs. He and Orikhid switch places, the chagrian playing the chaperone, Obi-Wan stepping aside to guard, and the lift takes them down. Life pulses and pools on the ground level, thick and layered with generations all packed into one small space, their echoes sinking into the foundations, into the dust and the infrastructure. Coruscant had this feel too, deeper down, but as they built ever further up, something of the planet itself seemed to fade down below, foundation upon sunken foundation turning the deepest levels into places of forgetting, rather than memory.

The temple, on the other hand – it was the tending of masters to make sure the halls didn’t remember _too_ much, but gentle echoes of previous generations of Force-sensitives still hummed in the serene halls.

A twinge passes through Obi-Wan’s chest, and the spark of joy in the musings fades away. How much of that was lost, now?

Traffic and crowds were thicker in the lower levels,, but Satine charges into the press of work-crews and schoolchildren and shoppers with what must be some specific destination in mind.

Her destination proves to be a public market, a sprawling affair the likes of which he’d glimpsed in Keldabe, but had been shuttered with everything going on.

Stalls aren’t shuttered here. Everything is in full motion – lit up signs and conflicting music spilling out, junk heaps and artists and weavers and transient food stands.

“Um, Duchess?” Orikhid questions.

“My _buir_ always had to visit the nearest open market.” Satine says. “He used to take me when I was still little. Before it got too dangerous.” Before the threats on his life started turning into threats on hers. “He used to say he longed for the noise.”

It doesn’t take long for people to notice who is in their midst, with her lilac cloak and her raw _beskar_ vambraces and the maroon flash of her leggings over her black and _beskar_ boots. She had dressed to be seen, dressed the way they’d remember having seen her.

Granted, she also only had a few spare sets of clothes, but there _was_ intent behind it.

It doesn’t take Obi-Wan long to notice something either – the lilies. Vases set on tables with just three blooms in them, small details stitched on a child’s coat, graffities on a stall or in the mouth of an alley in gold or yellow or green. He steps forward and touches Satine’s elbow, pointing a couple out and letting her find the rest on her own, keeping his guard up.

Whispers rise, looks turning into stares and into murmurs, a berth starting to give way as people recognizes her and turned or stepped aside, one action turning into another, quiet salutes being raised in fists pressed to chests. Small acts of recognition and respect, and the crowd pulls her in, swirling around her as her presence builds around them, the whispers turning into murmurs turning into a burble of noise amidst the rest. Orikhid remains relaxed. So does Obi-Wan. He senses tension, senses anticipation and focus, but no threats. Not yet.

Finally someone dares to speak, to ask a question, and Satine smiles, answers in quick, sure words. It was a simple question, it received a simple answer, but it broke the bubble around them, and after one came another, and another, and another. Some people just wanted to introduce themselves, to clasp her arm and have her see them, feel seen. A young boy bounds up with wide eyes, saying he saw her get shot on the holo, and asking if it had hurt really bad and if she was all better now. Voices around them quiet, and Satine crouches down, and holds out her hand. The boy takes it.

“Hello.” Satine replies with a smile, because he really had run up and blurted that all out. “I see you know who I am, but who are you?” She inquires.

“Rosta Keeva.” The boy boasts proudly.

Satine pulls the ruby pin from her shawl, and holds it out.” Will you hold this for me a moment, Rosta?”

The boy takes it, big brown eyes impossibly wide, and Satine unwinds the silk shawl, revealing the still pink scars of the wound and the surgery that had followed, and she rewinds the shawl to drape around her shoulders and down her back. She’s revealed the _beskar_ plate on her chest too, and those three lilies in gold.

“I was shot, and it did hurt.” Satine replies, gently taking her pin back, and fixing the shawl in place. “I’m still healing, but my skin will be stronger for it. See?”

Rosta nods. “My _buir_ has scars too.”

Orikhid offers her a hand, and Satine stands. “A lot of us do. War leaves its scars wherever it pleases.”

“Are you really going to make peace with _Kyr’stad_?” Someone calls out. Satine turns to look, but whoever it was, they don’t step forward to identify themselves from the rest.

“If _Kyr’stad_ are willing to make peace with the rest of us, I will do my best to see that effort made true.” Satine replies firmly.

“ _Pehir b’pirek_ ,” Someone snaps. “ _Kyr’stad_ has no right to peace.”

Obi-Wan struggles to understand the phrase, as the literal translation is _spit for tears_ , but he takes it to mean something along the lines of _their regret is an insult_ , or _their_ _remorse is a lie_.

“But I do.” Satine retorts, “ and so do the rest of us. We can’t have it both ways.”

“We can if they’re dead.”

“And how much else would die with them?” Satine demands, reeling on the crowd, her burning gaze seeking out the speaker. “How many more sons and daughters? How many more worlds? Mandalore is drowning in our own blood!”

Obi-Wan feels his stomach tighten and twist, because that isn’t a phrase she uses lightly – she’d almost died that way herself.

“So what?” Someone shouts back. “We’re just supposed to make nice with _demagolka_ like that? Call them _vod_ and forget the debt they owe our dead?”

“ _Your_ dead?” Satine snaps icily, voice straining, and then reels herself back in, but the words were heard, and more than one mando shifts in shame and looks away. Satine takes a breath, lifts her chin. “I am not asking you to love them. I am asking you to do something far more difficult and demanding – I am asking you to simply live with them. If they stop, we have to stop. We all have to stop, and say enough. Say no more. Say this – this is where it ends; the generations of violence and vengeance and destruction. If they – if _individuals_ who call themselves _Kyr’stad_ now - have something to pay for – I _will_ see that they pay for it. But they will pay for it _justly_ , their crimes will be known and their penance awarded accordingly.”

Someone scoffs, but their derision rings in silence.

“Do you think _Kyr’stad_ are strangers to you?” Satine’s voice lowers. “Do none of you have missing _vod_ or _verde_ who just _vanished_ out there? Or didn’t vanish, who _left_ , and no one will claim to know where to? Look at me and swear to the stars it isn’t so – and I’ll know you for a liar. Some of them were taken. Some of them were made promises. Some of them, some of them just _went_. But _Kyr’stad_ isn’t some shadow out there from far away. They are right _here_. They come from our cities and our clans too.”

Satine looks around, a defiant demand blazing in her gaze, impressed upon everyone who dares t meet it. “ _Kyr’stad_ is more than its numbers. _Kyr’stad_ is an idea. A poisoned ideology that bears bloody fruit. Kill the idea. Let it die. But we have to stop _murdering_ each other.”

Her passion brims around her, but she carries herself with commanding control, like her father before her. Those around her are hushed, quiet. Obi-Wan and Orikhid are keeping tempers down, alert for danger and wary of sparking a mob, but the rest… the rest is all Satine. That focus, that rapture, that deep _feeling_ invoked by her words.

“My brother.” A man steps forward, tattoos on his chin, and he tucks a bucket under his arm. “Ten years now and the clan won’t even mention his name. My _ba’buir_ said it was better to consider him dead.”

Satine looks him in the eyes, and nods. “My sister.” Satine says quietly. “She thought she could turn their cause in the right direction. She was wrong. She came back but not the same. But she did come back. So many never get that chance, and never will.”

“I had a cousin -“

“They say they’re missing -“

“ – told they’re dead, but it never seemed like the truth - “

“ - _buir_ went after her and never came back either – “

It spills out like rainwater off rooftops, gushing and messy and not quite clean, names that haven’t been spoken in years, stories they were told and always told not to tell another soul, maybe this generation, a generation back, two, there was someone, somewhere in their lives, either taken or run away – or who walked in one day and wouldn’t – or couldn’t - say where from. _Kyr’stad_ had runaways and deserters too.

Satine listens. Satine listens, and the stories keep coming. Some of them are sad. Some uncertain. Some angry. Some condemning, but the stories come. This is their Speaker, and she’s listening now to _their_ voices.

It lasts for hours, people coming and going, some staying the whole time. Stall-owners and shop-keeps and grub-cooks wheedle their way in, barrels and crates and tables dragged in, transactions quietly being made in the background as the market absorbs this new spectacle into the fold.

One old man, frail enough that he needs one of his grandchildren to stead him, but with the hard planed face of an old warrior, looks deep into her clear eyes, his own ruemy, and asks if she would really make peace with Tor Vizla, if the man tried.

“Honest to me, _Jorad’ika_.” The old man rasps. More than one onlooker shares a glance.

Satine looks back at him, matching sharp focus for sharp focus. She only glances down to fully consider it.

“I don’t know.” She finally replies, looking back up with hard earnestness. “But I’ll never have to know, either. When Tor Vizla finally comes out of hiding, he won’t survive Jango Fett, and I can live with that.”

“You are truly certain Fett will win?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t have to turn, already having noticed that particular entrance, the crowd easing around a small retinue with deference.

Satine looks up, she doesn’t rise. “Lord Halon.” She greets coolly, dipping her chin. He offers his arm. She offers a delicate hand. Only when he takes it does she stand, and then clasp forearms. As angered as the man is, Obi-Wan can also feel that he’s bitterly impressed with her mettle. She looks him in the eye for a long, critical minute, and then answers his question.

“I am certain, and the certainty of the swiftness with which he’ll win grows with every honorable _vod_ that stands with him.” A reply, a challenge, _and_ an accusation.

Obi-Wan bites down an inappropriate grin, keeping his expression serene and unruffled.

“A matter of simple mathematics, of course.” Lord Harlon nods, patronization curling almost unnoticed in the back of his tone. _Almost_ unnoticed.

“No, Lord Halon.” Satine refutes resolutely. “My father’s war was a matter of simple mathematics. Had it been more in his favor, perhaps we would not be where we are today.” Her previous comment was subtle, personal – this one was cutting, and everyone knew it. “My father was a Warlord, but not the _Mand’alor_. Jango Fett _is_ the _Mand’alor_ , and everything that implies. His victory is not just certain, it is _inevitable_. “

“His history would suggest otherwise. _Kyr’stad_ has defeated him before. Or have you forgotten Galidraan? And that our _great Mand’alor_ simply abandoned the rest of us in its aftermath?”

“Duchess.” Obi-Wan turns stiffly, grip on his lightsaber crushing. Satine turns her cool gaze on him, evaluating, watching the crowd in the peripheral around him. Satine lifts a quelling palm towards him, and turns back to Halon. Obi-Wan grits his teeth, but it’s the right move. It was not his place to speak here, and certainly not over her.

“Padawan Kenobi has strong feelings in regards to Galidraan, Lord Halon, forgive him.” She says, and doesn’t give Halon the chance to speak either way, leaving his opinion on Obi-Wan’s interject utterly moot. “As do I. To the first, it was _not_ _Kyr’stad_ who felled the _Mando’ade_ at Galidraan. It was a retinue of several dozen Jedi Knights and Masters, who had been misled into believing that the _Haat Mando’ade_ had murdered civilians. Children among them. The Jedi did not have the right to take lives for this, but when in combat, any well trained _verd_ knows it is exceedingly difficult to subdue an equivalent opponent. Once the fighting began, I imagine the _Mando’ade_ left them with no choice if they wished to preserve their own lives. Even the Jedi Order acknowledges this, and Padawan Kenobi’s own Master is currently serving restitution for their grave mistake at the _Mand’alor’s_ side. To the second, _Kyr’stad’s_ so called victory in this treachery was not won in any honorable means, but through betrayal, Lord Halon. The betrayal of both the Jedi Order and the _Haat Mando’ade_ by a… neutral party. Who was not, in fact, neutral, but a partner of Death Watch.” She stares him down at this.

He doesn’t flinch, but Obi-Wan can tell he felt that implication strike home. Whether he is truly neutral or holding a grudge or something worse, Lord Halon realizes he is, at this moment, under a lot of scrutiny and she has just cast his precarious position in a very unflattering light.

“As to the last, Lord Halon, Jango Fett’s absence in the aftermath was not a _choice_.” She says sharply, and Obi-Wan tenses, but there is nothing he can do. “He was remanded into _slavery_. And when he _took_ his freedom, he returned when we needed him.”

That is not, he feels, a part of the story she had the place to share, not when Fett himself doesn’t speak of it, but it’s out there now.

Lord Halon weighs his next option. Obi-Wan gets the sense that this is a man who very carefully weighs his options – and often for too long. As it is, Satine gets ahead of him, already leaping forward while he was still looking for a place to land.

“Where you really weighing the future of your House on whoever had the better odds of winning?” Satine demands, thinking back on the nature of his question and finding it wanting.

Orikhid catches Obi-Wan’s eye, the older padawan uneasy now too. That was a dangerous question. Even a cautious man can have a temper, and she’s lit it.

“What a bold accusation, from a girl who does not appear to have put consideration into the future of her House at all. Look where that got you.” Halon snaps back scathingly, back drawn up. “The Great House of Kryze, crushed within a year of your care, and you expect me to put the future of the rest of Mandlore in your hands? You couldn’t even keep what your father entrusted to you. You’re immature and reckless and ruin will follow your name. You have no patience, no grasp of consequences. You think _you’ve_ lived too long with this war? You’re a _child_. Some of us have suffered it since before your father was born-“

“And what have you done, for all your _suffering_?” Satine cuts back, feet planted for a fight, balance braced, for all there was still so much of a diplomats grace in her posture. “At least I have acted. And yes! Yes! My actions had consequences. My House paid for them. My kin paid for them. _I_ paid for them. But do you honestly believe that because there isn’t rubble and blood on _your_ doorstep that your actions haven’t had consequences? That your failure to act hasn’t had consequences? Or do you just not care because it is other people who bear the brunt of your selfishness and your cowardice?”

“I am not a coward!”

“You would stand by – you _have_ stood by – while _Kyr’stad_ burns worlds to the ground, just because they haven’t turn on _you_ yet? You would side with them in victory if given the chance, and you call that – what? Justice? Honor?”

“I call it survival. I call it protecting those who look to me to lead them.”

“I don’t.” Satine denies him. “There is more than one way to die, and any _Mando’ade_ should know that the death of the body isn’t the one that matters most.”

“You are so young.” He shakes his head. “And so ready to demand that people throw away their lives.”

“I demand nothing that I am not fully willing to give myself.” Satine declares.

“Yet you’ve never been on a battlefield.” He scoffs, throwing his hand out to encompass the crowd, the veterans among them.

“You think war is only on a battlefield?” Satine retorts bitterly, voice straining. “You’ve never stood in the ashes of your home and known that no matter where you go, death and fire would follow you. Don’t patronize me about war.”

They’re deadlocked, two stubborn wills refusing the yield. Recognition of the fact crosses Satine’s face, and she draws in a breath and turns away.

“Lord Halon,” She states clearly, clasping her hands and narrowing her stance, drawing away from the fight of it. “ as the Lady of House Kryze.” She pauses, and Obi-Wan can feel her grapple with what comes next, feel the battle continue inside her, her emotions twisting up, her convictions sharp and conflicting. “ As the Lady of House Kryze, I forgive you, for failing to act in aide of my Clan when our need was greatest. I will not hold this against you. I will not demand recompense.”

Their Houses had been allies a long time. She had _every_ right.

“But Lord Halon?” She looks to him once more, all her fire turned to ice, “This will be the last time I forgive you.”

As the Head of her House, those words were the end of an Alliance. As the Speaker of Mandalore…. they were a warning.

Satine turns and offers a salute to the crowd, to the old man still at her table, and Orikhid switches places with Obi-Wan, who offers his arm to Satine. Her expression gives nothing away. The nails digging into the soft side of his elbow, on the other hand, say quite a lot.


	52. Chapter 52

Parked out in the wastes far from any of the domes, Obi-Wan cranks back the seat in the upper rear turret and looks up at the stars through the clear dome. There’s plenty of life on his ship right now – Vesh happily tinkering with his modified transmitter, Orikhid quietly mediating in his cabin, Sha’me and Casra going through stretches in the cargo hold, Mij Gilamar puttering in the galley. But outside the ship it’s quiet. Not just in the physical sense but in the Force.

Kalevalan domes gleamed like distant beacons of life, but the wastelands were the barest susurrus of old, diminishing memory, the planet itself a faded, sturdy, slumbering thing.

Obi-Wan let himself feel the stars, their glittering, pulsing brilliance, the currents of the Force spanning and swirling between them like gossamer threads of aurora color, living planets dark to his eyes like sparks and embers in his senses, the Living Force twining into the Unifying. He lets himself drift into it, thumb brushing over his lightsaber as the crystals brightened his connection to all of it. His eyes drift towards the Mandalore System, towards the vaguest sense of his Master, though he doesn’t know if he actually senses the man or if he imagines he does, knowing where he is.

“ _Ko’uurkara’e_.” Satine murmurs fondly.

It takes Obi-Wan a moment, trying to puzzle out the meaning, which is difficult, as he isn’t completely certain which words she’s strung together. _Mando’a_ was a highly subjective language, and meanings could vary greatly because of it. “Promises made by starlight?” Obi-Wan hedges, turning and looking down as Satine climbs the ladder and lifts herself into the turret down and up onto the platform, letting the hatch seal behind her.

“Not bad.” Satine offers. “But no. _Kote uur_ , not _koor_. ‘Glories in the quiet presence of stars.’ A bit poetic for what could be simplified as star-gazer, but you deserve poetry, I think.” She teases.

Obi-Wan huffs, but the subtle compliment _is_ pleasing. “A bit long for a nickname, isn’t it?” The Mandalorian jedi padawan questions.

“I think it would suit you.” She says simply. “Though I suppose something shorter would be easier to say. I’ll think about it.”

Obi-Wan smiles a bit. “My master calls me _Dral’solu_.” _Bright-One_ , he informs her. “But… Stargazer... I like it.”

The chair isn’t made for two people, but it is made to hold a full grown Mandalorian in heavy armor, so he and Satine just about fit comfortably, when he offers a hand and she accepts. She makes herself comfortable laying back half over his side, twining their fingers together. Thankfully, Obi-Wan has taken off his upper armor already, before finding his mind too restless for sleep.

Out in the wastes like this, they may make an obvious target, but either the jedi would sense anyone coming for them, or the ships proximity sensors would, long before anyone could actually get to them. It afforded them the luxury of relaxing just a little.

Satine shifts to get comfortable, and Obi-Wan twitches a little, heat rising to his face and… elsewhere. He gently adjusts them both a tad more comfortably, setting his lightsaber aside in favor of holding her.

Satine sighs, staring up at the stars, and a breeze whispers against the dome, slipping around the planes of his ship.

“You can’t see the stars from the domes.” Satine says quietly. “Aside from the markets, that was one thing my father loved about Keldabe. He grew up here in Kalevala, you know, so it was… novel, for him, watching the stars from planetside.”

Obi-Wan hums, listening, and lifts the hand not in hers up to tease at a lock of her silver-blonde hair. He likes the softness of it, the slightly spicy soap smell it carries, the same soap he uses, the way the fair color shines in even the barest hint of light. He can call a dozen lines of poetry to mind, just from a lock of her hair alone, but he feels it would be too foolish to say them.

“He used to rouse Bo-Katan and I from bed, when he worked far too late and realized he’d missed saying goodnight for the evening." She says, soft with memory. "If it was clear that night, he’d wake us up, take us to the roof, and point out constellations, telling us the stories that inspired them." She pauses, quiet for a minute. "I’d almost forgotten that. It’s been a long time.”

Obi-Wan smiles, letting her lock of hair slip through his fingers so he can tuck it behind her ear, tracing the shell of it with gentle fingertips. The memories sound lovely, colored with a sad sort of sweetness.

“Do you remember the stories?” Obi-Wan asks, letting his fingers graze over her cheek until his hand lands over her collarbone, resting there against her skin, feeling her heartbeat and her breath.

“Some of them.” Satine murmurs, curling into him a little more, shifting back against his chest and turning her head, her temple against his jaw as her gaze seeks the stars. She lifts a hand, tracing one of the constellations.

“That one was my favorite.” She says, tracing a series of twelve stars. “The Chariot of Vhal Kryze.”

“Your family has a constellation named after them?” Obi-Wan inquires, surprised.

“Mn-hm.” Satine hums, still watching the stars glitter, her fingers tracing idle patterns over the back of his hand, and Obi-Wan – he thrives in it, the close hush around them, the small, simple acts that feels so intimate and profound in spite of their ordinariness – or because of them. He isn’t sure, but he craves her touch, her voice, her thoughts, and the more of them he gets the more he craves. “The story of Vhal Kryze’s Chariot is the story of the founding of House Kryze. She’s one of the old heroes of Mandalore.”

Satine takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and soft, her entire being seeming to settle against him, and Obi-Wan basks in her presence at it seeps into his skin. “Tell me?” He asks. What he feels for her is so different from Taria. He adored Taria - still does, really - but his feelings for her were like a summer lake - refreshing and warm; What he feels for Satine - it runs deep and it could sweep him away, made more vibrant and substantial by holding both light and shadow instead of just sparkling sunshine.

He could _drown_ in it.

Satine turns her head, peering at him for a moment, eyes glittering in the dark and starlight, and Obi-Wan swallows at the way she just seems to shine. Heat furls through his chest, spreading through his limbs, sparkling and darting and restless, settling low in his core. He swallows again, throat dry, and nudges her, tugging on their entwined hands. “Satine?”

“Sorry.” She murmurs, voice warm and lazy. “I got distracted.”

He feels his cheeks heat, but a smile curves over them too. “Oh, really?”

“Shut up. Do you want me to tell you or not?”

Obi-Wan turns his grin, nuzzling at her hair. “My deepest, sincerest apologies, Duchess Satine.” He laughs quietly. “I shall endeavor to be less _distracting_. Please, continue.”

She looks away, snuggling in again to watch the sky, her amusement and the quiet fluttery thrill of attraction she feels dancing in the Force, only enhancing his own.

“Long ago in a system far, far away, “ Satine begins, “ was another planet called Mandalore. The title, you see, is not so much for one world, as it is for _whichever_ world _the_ _Mand’alor_ stations their court on.”

Obi-Wan knows this, but he offers a small nod anyway, wanting her to continue.

“Like our Mandalore, it was a war-ravaged world, and one brought to ruin by centuries of violence, until finally, the planet could no longer endure. Myth has it that a great weapon was turned on Mandalore, one that burned the skies and scorched the seas and killed billions. It was in the last days, when hope was all but lost, that Vhal Kryze made her name. She was a pilot, some say better than any Mandalore has ever produced since, and she took her ship and did what no other would do – she raced into the rage and ruin, and she made an offer to every clan she could reach, through bombardment and planetary break-up." Satine blinks, her tone shifting as if finding new understanding in old memories. "It didn’t matter who they were – friend, stranger, foe. What she had to offer wasn’t much – ‘ I can’t promise you life, a home, or even a future; but I can promise you that you won’t die here, like this.’”

“She took everyone for whom that was enough and thrust their fate into the stars. When the new _Mand’alor_ rose, and the _Mando’ade_ rebuilt under different stars, those fractured clans swore their allegiance to her, and so rose the House of Kryze.”

She says it with pride, with a responsibility to uphold a legacy so old it had become legend.

“No one could have saved Mandalore, but in its people, she saved its memory, its culture, its history. That’s why Clan Kryze wears the color lilac – the color of memory and tradition.” Satine plucks at her silk shawl, wrapped over her simple silver shirt and maroon leggings. Her socked feet curl against Obi-Wan’s. “She was my childhood hero, you know. I wanted to be an amazing pilot, just like her. Bold and daring in the face of disaster." She says, and then puffs out a sigh. "At least until _buir_ actually tried to teach me to fly. _That_ was a disaster.”

Obi-Wan huffs a laugh. “You don’t like flying?”

“There were explosions the first time I was allowed to pilot, Obi-Wan!” Satine huffs back. “I crashed before even getting out of the hanger, disconnected a fuel rig and started a fire when I landed without struts. I’ve broken out in a cold sweat every time I’ve tried to fly since.”

“Did he get mad at you?”

“He would have had to have stopped laughing first.” Satine remarks wryly, pinching Obi-Wan when _he_ laughs.

“Which he eventually did,” She adds, tone trailing mischief, “ when the invoice for the damages arrived.”

Obi-Wan can’t help snickering. “Oh, Satine.” He curls up around her, chest fit to burst with affection, even when she pinches him again in feigned aggravation.

She sighs with exaggerated tragedy. “Thus dashed were my childhood dreams of grandeur.”

Obi-Wan huffs at that, and, wanting to look at her properly, rolls her on top of him, which – from the startled spark to the sudden heady rush of heat between them – was certainly _something_ to have done. Probably not wise.

It takes him half a moment to recollect his voice. “I’m not so sure about that.” He manages, voice surprisingly level. Her breath mixes with his, heart racing faster, pounding in tandem with his own, drumming in his chest. “The Satine Kryze I know is bold. She’s brave. She isn’t reckless, but she doesn’t flinch in the face of danger, doesn’t let fear get the best of her. She doesn’t leave her people behind – be they friend, stranger, foe. She loves them, and she loves them deeply. Even when its hard. Even when it hurts.” His hands are on her arms, bracing her up. Hers are on his chest, fingers splayed and then curling into his shirt. He holds her gaze, intense with awe and desire and the edge of a precipice – “She’s breathtaking, and brilliant, and I love her.”

Satine sucks in a breath. Obi-Wan reaches up to cup her face, to hold her, and all that radiant, vibrant fire inside her. “Satine, I love-“

She kisses him, pulling him into her with a plunge of daring and want, a sparkling blaze of life and passion in the Force, not untouched by the chill of shadows, of doubts and fears and wounds, but such things are utterly superseded by the _light_ in her, spilling out into the world, into _him_ -

She pulls back, gasping in air, and Obi-Wan chases, pressing their brows together, pulling her body tight to his, wanting more, wanting the two of them to be complete together, the way the Force sang they could be-

“Satine-“

“Say it again. Please.” She gasps against his skin. Obi-Wan licks his lips, inhaling the taste of her, the _essence_.

“I love you.” Obi-Wan says it, unashamed of it, unafraid. It’s freeing, to let it out there Enlightening, to let himself fall into it. There were no guesses, no need to hold back from certainty – the promises they’d made to each other eliminated the weight of such things. “I love you.” He repeats, letting it rise within him and spill over into the Force, letting himself feel it and release it. It makes him feel aflame, makes him feel powerful and humbled and - “I love you, Satine, I love you, I-“

She kisses him again, hands sliding up his neck and then down his flank, sending sparks skittering across his ribcage and a hot flare of want curling into every inch of him. Her hand slides under his tunic and Obi-Wan barely, _barely_ has enough presence of mind to tampen down his shields before he broadcasts a _lot_ more than the other Force-Sensitives on board really wanted to be sharing with him or than he wanted to share with them.

 _I can’t keep her_. Obi-Wan thinks, the thought agonizing and liberating all at the same time. _She isn’t mine_.

_But this moment is._

_This moment is_.

His fingers wind into her hair, the other hand sliding reverently down her back as hers drags across his stomach, making the muscles clench and tighten and his _want_ for her burn even more. “ _Satine_.” He growls loudly against her mouth, and then presses his kisses to her cheek, her jawline, her neck, eliciting soft pants.

“Obi-Wan.” She huffs into his ear, admonishing and husky. “We need to be _quiet_.”

 _That_ -

It takes him a moment, consumed and enthralled as he is by the sheer sensation of her.

That is a _challenge_.

Obi-Wan grins with it, and nips at her collarbone. She squeaks.

“You were saying?” He drawls cheekily, the lightest of teasing whispers.


	53. Chapter 53

Ben slams into the wall with a hard grunt and snarls.

“Jango! Are we crashing?” He demands, feeling the ship shudder around him and his stomach give a nasty twist. He only reacts this bad, he’s come to realize, when the ship is going down and he’s _not_ the one in the pilots chair.

“ _No_!” His _vod_ barks.

The ship gives a jolt that seems to mock them both, and a tinny, piercing ring of sound drowns out the rest of Ben’s thoughts, panic squeezing his lungs. He grabs the nearest handhold and clings, squeezing his eyes shut as a cold sweat shivers across his spine. “It _feels_ like we’re crashing!” He pants out roughly, accusing, and works on walling that instinctive, unwelcome fear away.

“It isn’t crashing, _vod_ , if we get shot the fuck down! Strap in and brace yourself!”

“Fucking sith hells!” Ben snarls, angry at Jango, angry at himself, and at whoever the fuck is shooting at them, fingers attempting to dig in to durasteel as he makes his way towards the cockpit. “Yes it _is_.”

They take a sudden dive as the door swicks open, and Ben ends up falling into the console, only to have Jango roughly rip him off the panel and shove him towards the co-pilots chair. “Not helping!” The _Mand’alor_ snaps.

Outside the viewport, the sky is riven with laser bolts and hot engines and _hell_. Flak is coming in thick from all sides, fighters screaming past each other, and for a moment, Ben is right back in the thick of the Clone Wars, in any one of a hundred skies. A fighter explodes, shedding sparks and fire, and they blow right through the blast, heat splashing over their view, all black and red.

Losing their grip at Concord Dawn, _Kyr’stad_ appears to have decided to take Concordia. They’d hit hard and heavy, and the _Haat Mando’ade_ had scrambled from Mandallia to join the fight. Concordia was valuable for many reasons – its rich mineral resources, including _beskar_ , its nearness to Mandalore as a staging platform, and its small size made it easier to hold once you were entrenched – easier to blockade too, but numbers against numbers-

Neither of them had the advantage.

“ _Osik_!” Jango swears, punching at the keys on the console, and Ben joins him, but they just don’t have control.

They strafe another ship, and their busted wing explodes, sending them careen wildly, and Ben closes his eyes as the world outside whirls nauseatingly. He pushes out his senses, trying to get a feel of the ship, of the ground, but there are explosions and bursts of energy and so much chaos in the Force-

A hand lands on his shoulder, sliding past the pauldron to the joint in the seam, pressing against tense muscle and Ben almost snaps at his commander before the presence reaffirms that individuals actual identity.

A single point of contact, something present, strong, and real. Ben grounds himself, listens to Jango mutter a prayer to the stars, bucket bent over his other fist as he gives up control, and captures their ship with his mind.

The vessel comes to a sudden and complete stop.

With equally as little warning, another vessel plummets unavoidably and explosively right into theirs with a screaming hail of fire.

~*~

They spend a few weeks on Kalevala, traversing from city-dome to city-dome. Satine talks to her people, high and low, broadcasting those issues which she notes seem to sink most deeply, to touch the most hearts and lives and concerns, influenced by what those she speaks to have to say to her. Good or bad.

Not all the Houses will speak to her – not after her sharp encounter with Lord Halon became infamous in rumor. Some decry her behavior, declaring her intentions dishonest, that she was only here to recruit them to Fett or else condemn them, that she did not truly respect any voice that differed from her own.

It’s difficult for Satine to make a proper debate otherwise when they will not treat her at their table.

“It is not your politics and philosophy I decry. It is not even your loyalty.” Satine had addressed a crowd, when their sentiments echoed those of their Lady who would not invite Satine through the door. “It is your faith. It is your spirit, and your adherence to the Creed. Soldier, farmer, poet; warrior or pacifist – these distinctions do not qualify or disqualify a Mandalorian, they do not violate the Resol’nare. But if you are not in this for our people, if you are not with this _Mand’alor -_ then tell me what you swore yourself to, _who_ you have sworn yourself to, that gives you the right to call yourself _Mando’ade_. Tell me why the stars should carry your memory, when you couldn’t even carry honor in your word. Education and armor, self-defense, our people, our language, our _leader_. This is what it means to be Mandalorian. So are you? Are you Mandalorian or _not_?”

The response to that particular broadcast had been…aggressive on all fronts. Some aggressively supportive, for those who leaned in her favor; aggressively dismissive, from those who leaned in favor of the New Mandalorians; aggressively scornful, from the _Kyr’stad_ side – they had their own _Mand’alor_ , after all. One they decreed more righteous, more true to faith, more _worthy_ , than Jango Fett.

Satine looks into her own clan, as well, but what they find is… discouraging. Death Watch had been thorough in butchering her clan. Some had survived by virtue of having been away from home, but _Kyr’stad_ had bombed her families entire district within their dome to dust, rounded up the survivors, and executed them. Hundreds under the banner of House Kryze had died, fighting to try and keep her kin alive.

Satine tries to drop to her knees to apologize for their losses, to bow her head in gratitude, for their loyalty, and their attempt – and they will not let her. Not as the Speaker for Mandalore. Not as the Lady of their House. Not as the last daughter of Clan Kryze.

They don’t always stay one step ahead of the assassination attempts – and there are four, in those two weeks – but none of them get as close as that sniper back on the space port. Well, that’s not exactly true, but one deeply regrets getting in range of an overprotective Mandalorian padawan, and another deeply regrets having misjudged the tolerance of an angry Mandalorian crowd. The crowd hadn’t been receptive, in particular, to the duchess that day, on principle, but they’d found it very offensive that someone had thought they’d get away with an attempt on her life in their presence.

They send off for Concord Dawn next, after a few hot-tempered arguments about it, but Concord Dawn had been quieting down, and Satine refuses to budge from her insistence. Concord Dawn suffered far more directly from this conflict than Kalevala – they would have her voice too.

Obi-Wan ducks, one boot sinking deep into mud, and leans into the Journeyman Protector next to him, gritting his teeth and deflecting blaster-bolts while the mando swore and reloaded.

“I swear we thought this area was calm.” The protector insists, charge-pack clicking into place before he raises his blaster and fires back on the swooping speeders. “We would never have intentionally put her in danger.”

“Calm isn’t exactly something that follows the Duchess.” Obi-Wan replies gamely. He hardly thinks the Protectorate were in on some plot to do Satine harm. “That’s what I’m here for.” He offers.

“No offense,” the Journeyman chuffs, and Obi-Wan can hear the grin in his voice, “ but I thought you where there to look pretty.”

Obi-Wan can’t help it, even as a blaster bolt zings down his blade and skitters past his hand with searing heat – he chuffs a laugh. “I’m _flattered_.”

The speeders swoop around again, more of a harassment than an assault now that they’re down in number and Sha’me and Orikhid had taken care of the skid-cannon with a lovely explosion.

Obi-Wan jerks his boot from the mud, the ground determinedly resistant to the action, and twirls his lightsaber. He knows it draws the eye, draws fire, but with a little focus and precision, he deflects a bolt right back into the engine of one of the speeders. It doesn’t explode, not at that range, but the speeder wobbles, knocked out of cycle, and careens into the other speeder. They collide, twist, and throw their drivers. Being Mandalorian, the wreck doesn’t deter them much, as they take to the air on their jet-packs, lobbing a grenade, but Obi-Wan catches that in the force and hucks it back.

That _does_ explode. One of them careens wildly and recovers, clearly deciding retreat was their next best option. The other takes a wild ride into slamming straight into the ground.

Obi-Wan draws back a hiss, as does the Journeyman Protector beside him, because he could all but hear the bones crunching from that.

The _Kyr’stadii_ gets up, however – hurt as hell – but they get up. And they keep firing, their mind a strange, shatter-bright edge of singular, obsessive focus. Obi-Wan defends. The Journeyman Protector at his side fires, and the shot kills. The sudden death jars the padawan, making his stomach pull tight, but he breathes out and its gone in the Force.

Obi-Wan gets clapped on the shoulder after the Protector takes a moment to be assured his opponent isn’t getting back up. “Not bad, kid.”

“Thanks, I-“

Something slides against his inner thigh, pressure tightening around his knee, and Obi-Wan looks down just as a sharp beak lunges up.

He flails, a hard maw cracking against his visor as surprise, slick ground, and uneven balance send him reeling backwards onto his ass before he has the sense of mind to _get it off_ – He flings it.

“ _Osik_!” The Protecor swears, as the serpent smacks him straight in the chest, and _hard_. He falls backwards.

“Fuck!” Obi-Wan scrambles back to his feet, sliding in the mud before he finds purchase. The Journeyman dropped his blaster, two hands trying to latch onto and hold back a writhing, hissing, spiny length of sinew and killer instinct.

Obi-Wan leaps into action, flicking his lightsaber with precise control and cleaving the head from the body in one tight motion, before that sinister beak found the Journeyman Protector’s neck as opposed to his armor.

The body keeps thrashing a bit, spewing gore until the mando realizes _it has no head_ and throws it off. He lays back in the mud, chest heaving.

“I am so sorry.” Obi-Wan gets out, disengaging his lightsaber and offering a hand.

The purple and black helmet shakes back and forth, twitching a hand and taking a moment. “Not – what I expected.” He finally says.

“I was startled.”

“Yeah? Me too.” He accepts the hand up, making sure to pay Obi-Wan on the helmet, shoulder, arm and side as he does, smearing mud and gore all over him too. “Those suckers can cleave flesh and bone in a good snap, you know?”

Obi-Wan didn’t, but he’s glad neither of them found out first-hand.

They report the hostile fatality and walk back to the settlement, a collection of homesteads not dissimilar to the one they’d stayed at on Phindar, although this settlement was set up for farming on a much larger scale.

Not that they’d be getting much out of their crops this season. Half of them had burned, a third of their fields contaminated by fuel waste from crashed fighters. Fertile land that had been tended and cultivated for generations, torn up in an ugly scrawl of battle. Years of cultivation ruined in the span of a few days, and this was one such site of several the Journeyman Protectors had guided them to. They’d been remarkably receptive to Satine, to her cause, to getting her to see the damage done here. They’d introduces her to the people here, to the way of life, and to the losses.

Satine had spent hours the day before watching fields smolder, a slow, dark smoked spread too vast in breadth for the Protectorate to put out. Instead, they were forced to wait and hoped the rains kept coming, just making sure it couldn’t take any of the homesteads with it, and trying to keep it from jumping the road. “We’ll go hungry for this.” Satine had told him, told everyone, on another transmission, after describing the ruin, the bleakness, the viciousness of how avoidable it was.

“We never learn our lesson, do we? We’re killing worlds. We’re killing ourselves. Not just at the opposite ends of a blaster, but in a slow war attrition against our own sustainment. We’re killing ourselves by turning fertile fields to barren dust, by contaminating clean water, fouling breathable air. We’ll sicken, and we’ll starve.” She looked away them, though the transmissions had no footage. “When we’re not fighting for glory but for scraps, will the war be worth it then? It has to end. And it will. It always does, eventually. But this is the choice we are making – either we end this war, or it ends us.”

Casra meets them first, jogging up with her overstuffed medical bag, a teal and white coat on over a simple set of blacks. “Which of you is _bleeding_?” She demands, aghast and even wider-eyed than usual.

“It’s not ours.” They protest.

“You swear?”

“I swear.” They both repeat, and then stand there under the considerable force of her concerned gaze, boring into them in search of weakness, until she seems satisfied, letting out a relieved breath in a rush, nodding, and jogging off to check up on the other erstwhile and unsuspecting defenders.

“So… you two are _jetiise_ , right?” His current companion inquires, drawing slightly.

“We are.” Obi-Wan nods. “Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, at your service.”

“Cort Davin.” The mando replies quickly. “You uh – you were good back there.” He says stiltedly. “I’ve heard stories, you know, about the other one. Fett’s _jetii_.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t quite know what to do with his master being called Fett’s _jetti_ , but he supposes the term is not strictly inaccurate. Obi-Wan still looks over with a pull of a frown, even though the other man can’t see it. “What kind of stories?” He inquires warily.

~*~

He sucks in air, letting out a low, guttural cry at the pain shuddering through his body.

He coughs, and sucks in air again. Dust pulls into his helmet, and Jango spits, coughs, and spits again. He’s been rattled to hell and back. His limbs respond sluggishly, which is still more than his eyes want to do, but he manages to peel them open too. His display is flickering, adjusting, flashing out, flickering again. He drags a hand towards his bucket and raps it a few times. That lets him know that absolutely every single part of his skull hurts, but it does nothing for the display. He shuts it off. His fingers dig into loose dirt, and he figures he must have been ejected, though he sure as hell doesn’t remember.

Groaning, he puts some effort into that grip and tries to crawl. Every muscle in his body protests, lancing pain radiating off his ribs, his arms and legs feeling heavy and liquid.

Sounds bursts in his ear, scratchy and shrieking and indistinct all at once, and Jango growls, shaking his head habitually and regretting it instantly. He stops moving, giving himself a moment to breathe, considering even that takes effort.

 _Alright, shabuir, get your ass moving_.

He growls at himself, and grunts, and forces his limbs to pull and drag and push. It quickly becomes apparent that he’d trapped under something, but pinned, not crushed. It takes some back and forth wriggling to get a little room, and he makes progress.

Small, small progress. The dirt turn loose easy though, so at least that is in his favor.

More sounds bursts next to his ear – his comms, almost working. Jango grunts at the annoying buzzing left behind, and draws in a deeper breath, tasting fumes and smoke.

 _Fuck me if I survive that fucking crash just to fucking suffocate_.

He coughs again, and digs his fingers a little deeper into the dirt, pressing for traction with his toes, gaining freedom one wrenching inch at a time, as his kit pinches and presses and catches, as he adjusts, and finds a better angle, a bit more room, and makes his way forward, towards an abstract blurriness of bright light.

Something pounds above him, a heavy thump on metal, followed by another, a shout.

“ _K’olar_!” _Over here!_

Jango stops, sweat – what he hopes is sweat – trickling through his hair, and slides a hand down to his blaster, glad he’s still got it. Someone has found him. He doesn’t know if it’s his people.

He exhales harshly, and moisture blots his visor, the filters clearly fucked. Pressure builds in his head, and he really fucking wants to close his eyes, wants a nap.

Instead, he shifts his hips, drags his blaster up forward, and digs his toes in. Metal groans an pops, shadows cutting through the wedge of light ahead of him, boots.

Crackling, sharp noise in his ear.

“ - _a’lor, can you copy? Mand’alor_?”

Jango breathes shallow, trying not to cough and turns his face. “Copy.” He pants. Someone ahead of his hoots, and an order is barked out.

Limbs reach in, and little rounds with little blinking lights are latched to the underside of – he thinks it’s the wing of a ship, actually, or part of the hull of one – and he has just enough sense to pull his limbs in and duck his head before the directional charges pop off, and the weight is ripped off of him. Dust swarms over him, obscuring everything, and Jango’s first attempt to get up and get in a defensive position ends with him face first in the dirt again. He snarls at himself, forces his limbs to coordinate, and makes it to his feet when a helping hand appears under his arm. He can hear blaster-fire up above, all around. They’re still right in the middle of the shit, trying to rescue _his_ ass.

Standing aches, but without that extra pressure, without that limited space to draw in air, his head starts to clear, and the ache begins to fade as his heartbeat ramps back up, adrenaline creeping back in as his senses clear and his awareness heightens. After a few shaky steps he shrugs off the helping hand.

He sways a little, but he keeps his feet. Familiar paint appears out of the dust haze, figures whose silhouette's he recognizes. Blaster-fire too, and his _verde_ are quick to fire back.

“Sir, we need to move.”

Jango nods. There is no security in their position, right in the thick of it with _Kyr’stad_.

He still needs to be jostled in the right direction before his feet catch up to the idea, and then his brain catches up with the rest. He grabs the nearest mando by the chest-plate and turns, looking over the hazy sprawl of his downed ship, and the ship that had gone down with him, and the fighters, and the screaming sky –

 _Fuck_. He looks, and its all the way around them, pieces and flaming parts and the enemy in way too close. Jango jerks his blaster up and fires on muscle memory alone, even when his muscles are half fucking liquefied, and he follows when his _verde_ move, because this is too much risk. _Fuck_.

“Where the-“ He coughs, and coughs, and growls, pissed about it. “Where the fuck is Ben?”

Six _verde_ close around him, an honor guard, ready and willing to lay down their lives to retrieve his sorry ass. Two are tucked in close, right where they can keep him on his feet, keep him moving in the right direction. Only one glances at him, the rest well occupied making sure they don’t get closed in on from all sides.

“We don’t have him, _Mand’alor_.”


	54. Chapter 54

Scraping.

The pitter-tap of something soft falling on something hard, fluid or dirt trickling onto metal.

Thunder and hail –

No.

Not thunder and hail.

Explosions. Blaster-fire. Engines screaming hot. Boots crunching against the ground.

Ben’s whole world shifts – tilts, really, as his body is wrenched from smoldering earth. His lungs suck in air reflexively, and it’s only once they do that he registers he hadn’t been breathing. Hadn’t really even been awake, in the strictest sense.

“Holy fuck, that’s-!”

He senses the hot-cold danger of a blaster coming up, of an impending execution, but his body is still half in trance, lax and wrapped up in the Force to keep himself alive and unwilling to respond.

“Wait!” A glove clamping down over a barrel, the grip creaking slightly.

“We take him alive.”

“He’s a fucking _jetiise_!”

“I said _alive_.” The order snaps. “Not awake.”

Light and color rush in as his helmet is roughly yanked off, and Ben sees blue on grey on black, sees smoke and cloudy dust, see’s the butt end of a blaster rifle-

~*~

“What is he doing? What is he fucking- _rrg_!” Bo-Katan kicks at the plating under her console, yanks on the yoke of her fighter, and whips into a spiral that sends the next nearest fighter careening out of her way. Considering her shields have twice the power output than standard, they’d damned well better. If she hits them, she’s the one coming out of it.

Lin Mereel’s handiwork, that. She’d modified a few of the fighters, and Bo-Katan’s stupid, crazy _buir_ had insisted she be first in line for the enhanced vessels.

“ _Well, he’s definitely Master Naasade’s friend_.” Keto remarks over the comm, and then goes abruptly silent. Bo-Katan had stuck the two girls in Intel while she went to join the fight. It had been a better decision than she’d realized, when it turned out that Mavi Var’de had a remarkable talent for pattern recognition that even Llatts Ward had been impressed with and immediately put to use, and Serra Keto could synthesize details into actionable information right there with the best of them. Together, they were rather frightening.

It was Keto who had insisted that Master Naasade wasn’t dead, when they retrieved Fett and not – not him.

Bo-Katan’s _buir_ had sworn blackly and ordered the retrieval team to take him back down. “ _If there is a single fucking chance of getting that shabuir back_ -“

And it had been Padawan Keto who had told him that that was the wrong to do, and that they would not gain anything by doing it. “ _He’s beyond our reach_.” She’d said quietly, resolutely.

“ _He’s my vod, I’m not fucking leaving him!”_

“ _He’s a jedi. He’s not afraid to sacrifice himself for his cause_.” The padawan had replied, her voice tight and trying very, very hard to be serene. “ _But he’s also Master Naasade, and I don’t feel it’s come to that. Master Fett, you can’t – you can’t risk this battle for him_. _The Force is with him, but your people need_ you.”

Bo-Katan’s _buir_ had actually backed down, actually let his people get him off the ground. Then, well, then he’d gone back into it with a vengeance.

 _Anger makes you reckless, Tukran’ika. It also makes you strong_. One of many lectures. Bo-Katan knew anger, knew it deep and true, lived in it, dreamed in it. Anger was an inescapable part of her. What Fett had, though… there was something inside of him that went so, so very far past anger, past rage and hate, that went somewhere primordial and conscienceless. She’s only caught glimpses of it, before, and it scared her. Not in a way that made her afraid of him, or for him, but in a way that told her some things should never be sought, should never be tread upon.

She’s seen it in him in the bitter hours between late night and early morning, when she escapes her nightmares and finds him already up, drinking or cleaning his kit or sharpening a knife, and it’s there, swallowing his eyes, etching itself into the careful, precise, familiar motions of turning a glass, or edging a blade. The first time, the first time she saw it, she was still absolutely certain one of them was going to kill the other, still hated him, and it had struck her deep, sunk low in her stomach, that not only _could_ he kill her, but that he could do so with such indifference that her death would be all but meaningless. Not a challenge, not a cruelty, not a casualty, just – pointless and forgettable. It was also the first time she thinks she truly realized that he wouldn’t – that he had simply _decided_ not to kill her. That he had a purpose for her, and he would make her fulfill it. There was something utterly _inevitable_ , about that, about him. It wasn’t there all the time, wasn’t something that sat lurking beneath the surface, but it was this place he _could_ reach that Bo-Katan would never even be able to dream of touching upon.

She thinks it scares him too. He’s been different, of late. His temper as sharp as ever, but something wildly defiant in his eyes when he reigns it in, something bridging towards that unholy nature burdened by dread and desperation and some bright, burning understanding. He’s been more cautious and more committed, a strange shift in demeanor that was puzzling, if admirable.

But she thinks, she thinks he was sinking back into it now, that impersonal absoluteness of vengeance, less a soldier than an act of nature as he tore through people and fighters alike with the darksaber, leaping from fighter wing to fighter wing with his jetpack, completely unafraid of freefall and blaster-fire, no vanguard able to keep up save in a fighter, and even then – one man in the sky was a hell of a lot more maneuverable. Those that tried to shoot him down often ended up firing on their own _verde’s_ fighter, and those that tried to meet him man to man –

They should have known they were no match for the _Mand’alor_.

 _Glory be, buir_ , Bo-Katan thinks with a hardness, trying to get through the flak towards him. _But damn this recklessness_.

She is well aware of the irony.

~*~

That floaty, slurry feeling is familiar, his mouth tasting dry and syrupy sweet, his thoughts slow and distant as sensation returns before faculty, before capacity.

Ben’s heartbeat beats heavy in his chest, sluggish and off-rhythm.

He’s cold.

A sound peels out of his chest, a low, uncertain rumble of complaint, and his eyes slides open almost of their own volition. Too bright lights stab right through his skull, burning out the barest impression of durasteel walls and reflective surfaces-

“Put him out!” Someone barks, their voice too loud in a small space meant for quieter tones. “He can’t wake up!”

“Do you know how much I’ve given him already? His tolerance is making this very difficult! I’m afraid his respiratory system will fail.”

“He’s a _jetii_. He’ll survive it.”

“Last I checked, they aren’t immune to being poisoned! Do you want him alive or not?”

“I said put him out!”

Something is pressed over his face, and a cloud of sickly-sweet-metallic washes into his lungs. His heartbeat thuds too heavy, and sensation fades away.

~*~

Obi-Wan jerks awake, blinking blearily, sheets sliding off his chest as he pushes up. There’s no sense of danger, no noise, no shifting in the dark to have woken him, and it takes a moment, trying to figure out what is wrong.

His fingers slide over the bunk, and he first realizes that Satine isn’t beside him and frowns, because he was fairly certain she’d come in to talk, and he’d fallen asleep holding her, but his mind dredges up a vague recollection of someone having knocked, and her slipping away. He’d dozed back off, when all had been calm emotionally and in the Force. Unless something was wrong, he was free to sleep while Orikhid was taking watch.

But something… something was off, and Obi-Wan slips out of bed, scrubbing his hands through his admittedly floppy hair and taking a deep breath. He feels slightly more alert, but the quiet rings in his ears, a sense of absence he doesn’t quite understand.

And then, abruptly, he does.

Obi-Wan moves, methodically tugging on his boots and donning his chest-plate and vambraces, leaving the rest as he makes his way out of the room. It’s not hard to track down a Journeyman Protector up at this hour – they work rotational shifts, so someone is always up and about – and to be directed towards a comm console. It’s not well encrypted, but _Kyr’stad_ already knows Satine is here, and Obi-Wan isn’t going to be discussing anything of particular strategic import. Besides, he doubts _Kyr’stad_ is even aware enough to be monitoring the comm he is trying to reach.

“ _Padawan Kenobi_.” Padawan Keto greets, her voice a little too high and tight for the usually bold-mannered girl.

“Is my master injured?” He asks simply, still prodding at that strange distance in his mind, somehow different than usual, like his Master was less far-away, but somehow more unreachable. The last time his master was severely injured, he got a phantom sense of it, but this is…. trickier to grasp.

“ _I couldn’t say_.” Serra replies awkwardly, making an effort to seem coolly serene in a manner she simply is not. In a manner her Master isn’t either, so he wonders which Jedi she’s trying to impersonate.

“He’s in battle, then?” Obi-Wan guesses, knowing that Master Ben certainly wouldn’t take the girl close to the front, for all that she seemed quite keen on taking herself, in spite of having strict orders not to. They’d heard about the escalation around Concordia.

“ _He’s – erk! Mavi_!”

Obi-Wan lifts his brows, listening to the small scuffle, and someone whose tones actually were cool and aloof comes over the comm. “ _Insofar as we can determine, Naasade has been captured. Mand’alor’s pretty pissed. Sorry_.”

The words ring through the silence in his head.

“Serra?” Obi-Wan inquires calmly, requesting confirmation.

“ _Erm. Yes. Their ship crashed, and – and we only got the Mand’alor back. But he’s not dead, I swear it_!”

“I know he’s not dead, Serra. He’s my Master. I’d _feel_ it.” Obi-Wan replies trying to keep sharpness from his tone because this is not her fault. It’s just – it’s just – _bad_.

Potentially catastrophic.

If _Kyr’stad_ has his master then _Kyr’stad_ has his master, and that’s – not good, alright, it’s _not_ – but if _Kyr’stad_ works for the Sith and _the Sith_ get hold of his master –

“Obi-Wan!”

“Yes?” He snaps, fingers curled over the edge of the console, and then immediately feels guilty, because Vesh had absolutely nothing to do with his emotional turmoil, and he’d just given the young man a fright. “My apologies,” Obi-Wan turns, cutting the comm call with Serra, which is – rude, but there is little else they can do for each other, “ what is it?”

Vesh’s shoulders are hunched, for all that the stocky young man is hardly helpless, and he eyes Obi-Wan nervously. “There is – um – everyone is meeting back at the ship.”

Obi-Wan nods, feeling anger melt into guilt and exuding a bit of calm and soothing for the other boys sake. He relaxes, some, and nods back before vanishing. Obi-Wan jogs back to the room they’d been granted, fetching the last of his armor and the hair-piece Satine had left on the stand, before making his way back to the ship. Vesh and Orikhid had been working on maintenance and some more repairs – the ship still wasn’t back to peak condition, after their poor landing on Draboon, but she was flyable. The modified systems hadn’t exactly helped their work, but Vesh seemed to adapt to them well enough, enthused by the challenge.

Obi-Wan jaunts up the ramp to the sound of an argument between Satine and Sha’me.

“ -not going to let this opportunity slip through my fingers!”

“Opportunity! Satine this opportunity is very likely a trap. It could get you killed!”

Obi-Wan pauses, observing narrowed silver-blue eyes and tensely arched lekku warily, because – well, because Sha’me and Satine didn’t argue like this. Sha’me didn’t challenge her like this, not as the _Jorad’par_.

“What’s going on?” He inquires, looking to Orikhid, who was standing by with crossed arms and an unhappy look on his blue face, lethorns bunched tightly over his shoulders.

Satine whirls on him, and Obi-Wan braces himself to receive her ire, but she lifts her chin and draws back her shoulders instead, gaze darting to the hairpiece in his hand and her bearing calming a little. She clasps her hands, all grace and har dignity. “I’ve received an invitatation as the Speaker of Mandalor.” She answers him stately.

Too stately. Obi-Wan crosses his arms and lifts a brow. “From whom?”

Her lips pinch. “From Lord Wren and Lady Murr of Krownest.”

In other words, from the heart of Death Watch.

Obi-Wan’s mind races. At his hip, he’d swear his lightsaber crystal pulse, the inner music that balanced them seeming to tickle against his bones and whisper around the shell of his ears. Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and releases it, not having realized how tightly he was drawing on the Force.

His master has just been – presumably – captured. His instincts say it is more than presumptive – or the Force does. Close call, really.

Death Watch has just invited Satine Kryze into hostile territory.

These might be related, they might not be. If they are, the relation may be malicious, or catalyzing. Perhaps it is a trap, or perhaps Tor Vizla’s actions have finally infringed too much upon these clans honor.

“You want to go?” Obi-Wan presumes.

“I _must_ go.” Satine replies fiercely, her entire being brimming with conviction, hope and danger balanced by uncertainty, made irrelevant by determination. “This is our chance.”

Sha’me utters beneath her breath in unflattering mando’a. Satine ignores her.

Obi-Wan gits his teeth and nods.

He wants to say no, say its too dangerous, too risky. He thinks that if he argues, she _will_ back down. She wants this to be real, to be their moment to finally bring peace to the table for all of Mandalore, but she knows just as well that if they are wrong, if she dies, it’s _over_. And she trusts him. He’s failed her once already, but she still trusts him. If he argues, she’ll believe it’s reasonable, and not the response of his feelings, and that would be a lie. He wants her safe, and this _is_ dangerous, but it also _is_ their chance. He can feel it. If they refuse - even if this is a trap, Death Watch will never make that offer in earnest, knowing it would never be answered. She’s not wrong about that.

He just wishes she was.

He wants to tell her not to go, he wants to race off to find his master, to join Fett and fight through whatever stands in their way, to see Master Ben safe again too.

He _can’t_.

It eats at him, burning and unfair and loathsome, sinking through his chest, tearing at his heart.

It is not his place.

He is a Jedi, first and foremost. His duty comes before all else.

“Then we go.” He replies simply, fist crossing his chest, heart twisting painfully beneath. “We are with you, _Jorad’par_.”

~*~

Ben comes awake all at once, jarring and sudden. His head pounds like a forge-hammer, his muscles feeling rubbery and aching, his heartbeat racing. He gasps in a deep breath, feeling sweat already damp on the thin layer of clothes he’s wearing – a simple black undersuit – and his head swims, vision spotting when he blinks, realizing his eyes are open.

He puts a hand to his chest – tries, and finds himself bound, unable to move. Ben jerks, moving his eyes only to send the room spinning, heartbeat hitting painfully under his sternum. He’s in a chair, bolted to the floor, bound at the wrists and ankles. He sucks in another deep breath, the air tasting – odd. His vision clears and spots with stars again.

“Too much oxygen.” He slurs, recognizing why his body felt so flush and so out of sorts at the same time. They’ve oversaturated the air, likely trying to wake him up – or make him pliable. A little bit too much oxygen did interesting things for the human condition. They’ve also dosed with something, he’d guess, given his racing heartbeat and he excess sweat in spite of the fact that he is still quite chilled.

It takes a few tries to effectively close his eyes, and to focus enough to keep them closed, instead of blinking instinctively. He doesn’t like that.

Ben can’t get his heartbeat to calm, not with this – artificial rush. He works on increasing his own temperature, instead, sweating more, in spite of the discomfort, trying to metabolize whatever they’ve dosed him with a little faster. He holds his breath and breathes shallowly in turn, not the most effective strategy, but the best he can do at the moment to try and avoid oxygen poisoning.

He shivers, his own increased heat making the room seem colder, the damp on his skin not helping. His stomach swirls nauseatingly, and his skin aches.

Maintaining his physical state as best he can, Ben turns his focus on the cuffs holding him in place.

He applies a little pressure, and jolts when a current of energy lashes back at him.

 _Pay better attention, Ben_. He scolds himself. He should have noticed that in the first place. This entire room hummed, a low current of energy flowing through the durasteel walls and floor, even the chair he was bound in. Stronger at the edges – some sort of force field, no doubt, but present throughout.

Ben opens his eyes, hands clenched into tight fists he hadn’t realized he was making, bare feet making contact with the floor, ready to shock him for misbehaving. He scans the room, but finds the riveted metal faultless. There is the hatch of an airlock ahead of him, but he does not know if this room is shipboard or if they are on a planet somewhere. Hopefully the same planet he was last on, else this could be… exceedingly difficult. He can sense the wall near at his back, a couple paces behind his chair, if he had to guess. The room is longer than it is wide, and both wider and longer than he would expect of a cell, or even an interrogation room.

In each corner – that he can see, at least – is the reinforced round pod of a camera, additionally protected by the faintest shimmer of – yes, he was correct – a forcefield, which sleeved the walls.

This cell was made to hold a jedi.

This does not come as a shock. Mandalorians _would_ know how to handle his kind.

Ben takes another shallow breath through his nose, the air seeming less heady in his lungs this time – hopefully they are reducing the excess oxygen. He eyes one of the cameras, wishing he could push those errant locks of hair back from his face, and offers one of his most pleasant negotiator’s smiles.

“Hello there.” He offers, giving a perusing look about before focusing on the camera again. “Lovely accommodations. I must say, I _really_ had needed that nap.”


	55. Chapter 55

Obi-Wan fires down the engines, listening to steam hiss off the hull from snow boiled against searing metal, watches fog rise around his vessel and seep low across the clearing he’s settled them down in, tall, heavy pines stretching up around them. Krownest was a pretty little planet, not unlike the colder reaches of Alderaan.

A tugging in the back of his mind pulls on his senses, and Obi-Wan grits his teeth, reaching up and pressing a hand at the back of his neck. It does no good, he knows, but it helps all the same.

The tugs are getting stronger – and Obi-Wan is grateful for them, because that _is_ his master reaching out – but they are _distracting_. He cannot afford to be distracted. Unfortunately, he can’t figure out how to respond. His master is figuring out how to reach him like this, judging by the methodical nature and the strengthening results, even as far apart as they are, but when Obi-Wan tries to reach back… it feels too distant, the bond trailing off into the blur of stars. When he tries to strengthen it, or even just yank on it, trying to copy his master’s efforts, he gets the sense that what he’s doing simply doesn’t _reach_.

It's frustrating.

Obi-Wan squeezes the back of his neck, takes a deep breath, and tries again all the same. Channeling his focus into it doesn’t seem to work. Yanking on it doesn’t seem to work. Feeding his emotions and his energy into it as he does with Quinlan doesn’t seem to work.

 _It would be nice_ , he thinks critically, _if it weren’t only when something was dreadfully wrong that I could sense my master at distance_.

The thought sits there, in his mind, for a minute.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

 _Oh, Master_ , Obi-Wan thinks in distress, _really_?

Bracing himself and bowing his head, breathing in tight, Obi-Wan sinks into that connection in the back of his mind, that brilliant, supportive, comforting thing, and, flinching, he _tears_ at it.

Pain lances through his skull, shuddering through his entire being, his connection to the Force rebelling the abuse, the bond throbbing when he stops. He bears the hot-cold aftershocks for only a moment before assuaging it, pulling the bond back together when the connection shivers, threatened.

 _That fucking hurt_.

He also rather gets the feeling that it worked. His master would most certainly have felt _that_ , their bond threatening to snap. Obi-Wan rubs at the sudden cold chill behind his chest, the memory of something else having been torn away from him, even if he was never sure what it actually was.

They are going to have to find a better way to make that work. He’d rather not go abusing his connections to the Force and his loved ones.

But the next tug in his mind is softer, like a simple exhale, and it fills Obi-Wan with relief.

His master may be captured, but what can hold a jedi’s body is worlds away from what can hold a jedi’s mind. Obi-Wan trusts his master, and he has faith. They will both make it through this.

Obi-Wan’s attention turns outward, sensing an approach, and he moves from the pilots seat, collecting his helmet and tugging it on. Sha’me and Satine wait in the hold, Satine in lilac and maroon, her _beskar_ on display. Her hair is loose and straight edged at the length of her jaw, a simple black circlet resting over her brow. She looks somehow both softer and more foreboding, like that. Sha’me is in her sleeveless blacks, with her black breast-plate and greaves, her vambraces and her helmet, which both match her skin-tone, are both in place. On the brow of her not-oft-worn helmet, Obi-Wan takes note of those burning gold lilies. It almost draws a smile to his face.

But Sha’me also has a blaster rife slung across her back, one on each hip, a back-up tucked into her boot, a blade strapped to one thigh and a stun-baton on the back of her belt.

At the very least – she’s not carrying any grenades that he can see.

They had agreed that only the three of them would come down to ascertain the validity of this offer, while Orikhid, Gilamar, Vesh and Casra, in a borrowed ship, would wait on standby. Obi-Wan, in a pinch, was confident he could Shadow-Walk the three of them to safety, and the rest could pick them up. 

Obi-Wan really hopes he doesn’t lose the _Lighthawk_ in this endeavor, but it would have been rude to sacrifice the borrowed ship if that were to be the case, and a tad too materialistic for a jedi of his sensibilities.

They can hear the snow and steam wash over their ship, as the other vessel comes down, and they wait for it to settle, before Sha’me nods, and opens the ramp. Obi-Wan moves to shield Satine, and she allows it, which he appreciates.

Their ramp drops first, and cold air rushes in, telling Obi-Wan exactly where the gaps in his armor are. His skin tingles with the chill, and he ignores it. Mostly. At least he doesn’t have his master’s sensitivity to cold.

The other vessels ramp comes down slow, but Obi-Wan only senses one being. When they reveal themselves, he’s even more apprehensive. Their armor is a dark charcoal grey, accented with shades of muted yellow and the stylized wren motif. They are also… a lot smaller than Obi-Wan was expecting.

 _Did they send…. a youngling_?

The girl moves with the confidence of skill, however, and a stride that decries no hesitation as she moves down the ramp, the blaster on her hip seeming a familiar and natural part of her. Her boots crunch snow, Satine stepping past Obi-Wan and Sha’me to meet her in the middle, and the girl plants her feet and removes her bucket, tucking it under one arm.

“Lady Kryze, _Jorad’par_ of the _Mando’ade_ , I am Ursa, _Ad be Wren_ , and my father has sent me to escort you in good faith.”

She doesn’t salute the Speaker, but her tone, though hard, is respectful. She seems neither bitter nor angry, though her dark almond eyes glitter sharply in assessment, almost in challenge, ready to pick apart any weakness or insult.

“ _Ad be Wren_ , I consider it a privilege to make your acquaintance.” Satine replies, with poise and utter sincerity stepping forward to offer her arm properly.

Ursa Wren takes it, and then twists with blunt viciousness – and not an ounce of malice. Obi-Wan gets _no_ warning. He gets no warning either when Satine activates her plasma buckler as she’s wrenched forward and down, breaking the girls hold, produces a stun-baton from a hidden sheath, cracks first the girls wrist, making her turn to guard it, then the back of her shoulder, and trips the girl over her knee and flat onto the ground.

He doesn’t get to do much more than lurch.

Ursa Wren stays on the ground, dark almond eyes watching Satine sharply, and she displays her palms while Satine holds her baton at the ready, the end crackling with the charge she hadn’t yet used.

“Fourteen?” Satine inquires, not a hair out of place.

“Fifteen.” Ursa Wren replies, lifting her chin, her olive skin made all the darker by the snow around her face and her tightly pulled back hair.

“Satisfied?” Satine inquires coolly, silver-blue eyes a cold gleam in the moonlight reflected off snow.

Ursa Wren nods. “You donned _beskar_ without ever proving you had the right.” She says simply, as if this is perfect justification for an assault.

Obi-Wan glances at Sha’me, whose posture relaxes at this explanation, and he sinkingly realizes that for a Mandalorian that _is_ a perfect justification for assault.

Satine offers the young girl her arm again, and Ursa accepts, but when Satine hauls her to her feet, the silver-blonde haired daughter of Kryze also yanks her in close, and presses the baton to the juncture of her jaw. “I have _every_ right, and my word alone, _Ad be Wren_ , is _enough_. I _am_ the _Jorad’par_ of the _Mando’ade_. You may question everything about me except my honor.”

Ursa Wren nods tightly, and Satine releases her, stepping back and disengaging. Her buckler retracts, and her baton is neatly slipped back into it’s sheath. Satine looks over the three of them. “Shall we?” She inquires, her tone just a touch wry.

Obi-Wan nods, not sure whether he wants more to shake his head in exasperation or kiss her and knowing both are inappropriate at the moment. Satine looks back at him, one brow lifting just slightly as if picking the thought from his head. Amusement dances there – and her own exasperation, as she no doubt wasn’t thrilled at the display she had to make – and she turns away before either of them give in to distraction, silvery hair floating over her shoulders, lilac silk shifting like water.

As ever, Obi-Wan follows her, Ursa Wren marching up the ramp beside them and Sha’me taking up the rear.

~*~

Ben dislikes the creeping unease solitude is starting to bring him. He’s released from the chair after a droid delivers a single ration bar and a single quart of water and leaves. He discovers, in the portion of the room he could not see, a durasteel slab that serves as either a bench or a sleeping surface, a durasteel stand upon which his gracious meal was delivered, and an utterly exposed durasteel privy.

The latter does not bother him for modesty’s sake, but for what its inclusion entails – that he can be kept in this cell indefinitely.

Granted, it’s a gracious space for a prison cell. He paces the length of it, careful not to touch the walls after the first time – that shock had been nasty. The dimensions are a puzzle in the back of his mind.

He eats with quiet efficacy, drinks half his water ration, and waits. He spends a good many hours over the next several days trying to reach out to his padawan (he is dreadfully relieved when it appears his padawan figures out how to reach back, in spite of their distance and his present difficulties), and alternately stares at different angles of riveted durasteel or performs a basic set of exercises.

Once a day, a droid delivers a meal. Several times, he makes chatty quips at the cameras to a dissatisfying lack of response. At least Ventress and Grievous had _bantered_.

Ben is not unused to solitude.

He’s beginning to think that may be the _problem_. Meditation is all well and good, but aside from the connection to his padawan, which exists inside of him, and the room, his reach in the Force is limited by the resistance the energy shield produces. If he sinks deep enough through his internal connection to the Force, he can overcome all of it, but, well, he’s not exactly sure how well he’ll come out on the other side. He’s not Anakin or Fay. Not everyone can meddle with the nature of their own existence.

So the isolation… it creeps at him. Seeps along the edges of his mind, reminds him – of things he’d really rather not be reminded of. He’s starting to wonder if the chill is real or just in his head, and that takes his thoughts places he doesn’t want them to go. He walls it off, to the best of his ability, and that leaves… boredom.

Ben hasn’t set so completely, stiflingly _idle_ like this is years.

“I must say,” He sighs, at this point feeling vainly like he was talking to himself more than anyone else, which wasn’t fantastic. “ I’ve certainly had better hosts. No one has even come to say _hello_.”

A minute later, to his delight, someone does.

“Hello.” They bark flatly, and throw something at him. Ben rises off the durasteel slab and catches it in an easy, fluid motion. He knows his skin is a palette of bruises, but prolonged meditation has done wonders for his general aches and pains, even with minimal sustenance – and it is minimal. They’re rationing him just enough nutrients and water to keep a person of his height and weight alive.

Ben turns the object over in his hands, stepping around the shackled chair. At first glance, it’s very similar to a lightsaber hilt. So similar, in fact… Ben pressed down a lifted key, flicks his wrist, and a blade springs out. Not an energy blade, but an ordinary one, made of metal alloy with blunted edges. A training blade.

He looks up, and his guest draws a familiar black-painted _beskad_ from their back, the edges crackling to life with white discharge.

The extra space in cell reveals its purpose, and Ben smirks. “Am I to teach you how to wield it?” He inquires, drawling, and twirls his own training blade, getting a feel for the weight and wondering if this – _kyr’stadii_ – even knows what a lightsaber – or the darksaber, he really supposes, actually feels like in your hand. It is not like a sword, like a _beskad_ – the blade carries no weight.

This isn’t Tor Vizla – disappointing, as Ben would certainly _love_ to make his acquaintance, but he does have the Vizla emblem emblazoned across the face of his armor. An heir, perhaps? Or just kin. Hard to say. All Ben can really tell is that he’s younger, if the brief glimpse of his voice was accurate, and that he’s slighter of stature, if just as tall.

It hardly matters. Ben eyes the other man up and down and judges disdainfully that they’ll never get their hands on it.

But in the meantime, he can indulge himself in some amusement.

He had wondered what their plan was – though he believes their capture of him was a spur of the moment opportunistic decision. He had thought he might be brought to Tor Vizla, and thereafter likely have been executed. Well, an execution attempt would have been made. He doesn’t scoff at the idea that an escape would have been guaranteed, but he’d hardly do himself any favors if he simply bet against his own survival.

He finds himself irritated that his visitor doesn’t have the courtesy to reply, simply lunges in. Ben will give him his due for the swiftness and commitment in the act, in his footwork as Ben cracks his dull blade against one that was very much lethal and turns the other’s momentum against him, trading places, but he won’t give him his due for his manners, or his honor.

Ben glances at the cameras, at the sparring ring that made up his cell, and grimaces in distaste. They wanted a spectacle? They wanted to study a jedi?

Ben casts the blade in his hands aside in disdain.

“Pick it up.” His opponent barks.

Ben curls his lip and then represses the gesture, drawing his posture together, even if the floor crackles warningly against his bare feet. Instead he smiles, crossing his arms and looking over his ‘student’ with the same measure of patronizing indulgence he knew had driven Anakin absolutely crazy. Which was the _point_.

“Oh,” He smiles charmingly, making sure his voice just _oozed_ , “I hardly think I’ll need it for _you_.”


	56. Chapter 56

Ben rocks back on his knees, tipping his head up and feeling blood run down his throat. He clears it, dropping his head forward, his nose most definitely broken, and licks the blood off his lips. “Echm.” He coughs just once, and swallows against the slick. “That was _petty_.” He remarks blithely.

“Pick up the sword and _fight_.”

Ben spits, trying to clear his mouth. “It’s not really a sword, though, is it? More of a-“

An armored Mandalorian boot drives into his stomach, and Ben doubles over, blood speckling durasteel in a splash of color. Bile lurches up his throat, and he swallows, sucking in air and letting out a groan of laughter.

Vizla – and Ben thinks he knows which Vizla, now – snarls wordlessly and paces with all the impatient vigor of youth. They did this little dance for hours yesterday and for hours today – at least, Ben assumed the long gap between visits was night. He can’t actually tell in the constantly lit cell. “Have I not displayed I am more than capable of being your match without it?” Ben remarks, eyeing the two retainers on either side of the airlock, what he supposes were meant to be intimidating presences, and deciding he’s safe enough to lift his hands and right his broken nose with a nauseating grinding click.

Vizla whirls on him, the pretend darksaber in hand levelled threateningly.

Ben lifts his blood smeared palms and smiles affably. He can practically feel the young man’s temper boiling over. He’s not undisciplined, at this age – Pre Vizla, if Ben has guessed right through that helmet. He’s not unskilled.

But the man Ben remembers had not lacked for patience, as this young adult appears to.

Ben lowers his hands to his knees and pushes upright to his feet, one hand darting to his abdomen as he winces. Vizla had been content to merely throw himself at Ben yesterday, blade or no blade. Ben had collected his fair share of bruises, but the results had not been in Vizla’s favor.

And Vizla had learned nothing of what he desired to.

Clearly, he thought a more brutal motivator might prevent a repeat of his previous humiliation.

Ben, in fact, was even less inclined to be indulgent. He toes the so-called sword he’d been given and sighs deeply, giving the young man what will appear to be a thoroughly earnest look. “I’m afraid I am just not feeling quite up for it, you understand?”

Vizla throws himself at Ben with a roar, and Ben lunges in, grabs the blade and forces it back, turning it to slam flat against Vizla’s helmet, dropping his step behind Vizla’s heel and throwing the _kyr’stadii_ to the ground on his back. Ben hisses, because the blade both cut _and_ burned his hand. His method of strengthening his own flesh with the Force was not as effective as simply grabbing the blade _with_ the Force, but the appearance of a purely physical feat had more of an impression on his audience.

Vizla leaps quickly back to his feet, mortification and furious pride burning like wildfire within him, but instead of immediately throwing himself at the jedi, again, he holds back, panting in sharp counts, and something hard and cool resolves in him, slowly rising through the flames.

 _Ah_ , Ben wonders, _would that be good discipline, at last_?

The young man before him despised him, viscerally and unquestionably, for being a jedi, and he had let that rule his emotions and his actions from the moment they’d been introduced, his ego becoming the bane of his own pride as Ben continued to outclass him.

Perhaps he was finally coming to understand that Ben would not be provoked into doing as he wished, that perhaps his boorish methods were and would remain ineffective. Honestly, if he had approached him with the least bit of _manners_ …

Behind Vizla, the airlock releases, and the droid bustles in, carrying a tray; his one quart of water, and a nutrient bar.

Vizla turns his head. “Take it back!” He barks at the droid, which bleeps in dismay, rocking back and forth before Vizla's threatening swing of his blade convinces it to flee.

Ben rolls his eyes, crossing his arms. “So I’m to starve and dehydrate until I do what you want, is that it?” He remarks flatly. “Pre Vizla – it is Pre, isn’t it?” All three of the _Kyr’stadiise_ start at that, and Bn can feel their unease. His lips twitch. It appears he _was_ correct. Let them stew as to how he could possibly have come by that information. “Perhaps it escapes your perception, but I have been told I am a remarkably, foolishly stubborn individual. Furthermore, I am a Jedi. I am perfectly _willing_ to starve rather than capitulate if it suits me.”

“I can make this very unpleasant for you, _jetiise_.” Pre Vizla retorts. “Perhaps that escapes _your_ perception.”

Force, the young man’s attempt at _menace_ makes Ben feel old.

The Mandalorian Jedi Master, former High General of the Grand Army of the Republic, sighs witheringly.

“ _Unpleasant_.” He remarks flatly. “How quaint, but I do bore of this. Tell me, Pre, whom exactly do you envision yourself taking the darksaber from? I presume that _is_ the point of this tedious little display? Do you imagine yourself a contender against Jango Fett?” Ben smiles. It’s not a nice smile, and he imagine the blood doesn’t make it any better. “Already preparing for Tor Vizla’s failure, are you?”

The young man looks away, but something about him roils, his unease growing stronger.

“Or is it Tor Vizla you think to challenge?” Ben can practically hear Pre’s teeth grinding, refusing to acknowledge a lack of faith, a failing of allegiance, in the leader of his Clan.

Ben presses a hand to his lower rib and bends, picking up the training blade. “Interesting.” He remarks softly, half because that actually quite hurt to do.

Ben tosses the hilt from hand to hand.

“Tor Vizla will not defeat Fett.” Ben says simply, watching the three _Kyr’stadiise_ before him.

One of the retainers by the door shifts, and the other lets out a small sound of dissatisfaction. Ben lifts a brow, staring into the reflection of Pre Vizla’s visor.

“He hasn’t even _tried_.” Pre mutters with scathing bitterness and wounded honor, and Ben finds his smile curling in satisfaction. He flips the hilt in hand, depresses the key, and watches the blade slip out. Pre tenses.

“Answer me just one more question, if you will?” Ben inquires though Pre hasn’t exactly answered any of them – not truly intentionally, at least. “Does Tor Vizla have my lightsaber?”

Ben senses a spark of caution in the beat of silence before Pre replies. But he replies. “Yes.”

Ben nods, mouth falling into a grim line, and his fingers tighten on the hilt in his hands. “How _unpleasant_.” He murmurs darkly, and then strikes.

Vizla barely gets his own blade up in time, the clash so close to his helmet that sparks blink off his visor. Ben lifts a heel and drives it into the side of his leg, throwing his weight into where the two blades met, and then shunting upwards, allowing Pre to gain a forward edge only to shove his shoulder into the other mans, throwing him off balance and releasing his weight, making him stagger forward while Ben slipped behind.

“It’s a blade, not a battering ram.” Ben informs him. “Don’t rely on your strength. Rely on your _balance_.”

Pre lets out a strangled sort of scoff. “Are you teaching me now?”

Ben lifts an imperious brow. “I’ve yet to determine if you’re actually capable of _learning_.”

~*~

The stronghold of Clan Wren is actually quite lovely, nestled next to a currently iced-over lake, in the depths of a deep pine forest and glittering, snow-capped hills.

The household itself, however, seems rather upheaved. In part, no doubt, due to the fact that Clan Wren was currently hosting a good portion of Clan Murr, the dappled bronze pattern of some ancient saber-toothed feline markedly different than the feathered avian motif of Clan Wren.

In part, perhaps, because a good many of those crowding the halls did not seem to have expected the appearance of Satine Kryze in their midst.

When they first enter the atrium and a good dozen hands fall on their blasters, Obi-Wan ignites his lightsaber towards the floor, though the sharp command of one displeased Ursa Wren seems to freeze a good many of them in their tracks.

She glances back at his lightsaber, dark almond eyes narrowing warningly, and Obi-Wan gives it a casual twirl before disengaging the blade.

“I apologize.” The jedi demurs with the best of his courtesies. “It would be unconscionable to harm a guest under your roof when we have been invited in good faith.” His gaze flits the room before returning to his hosts. “I would never attack unprovoked.” His courtesies cool into something rather a bit hard and flat at the last, a calm warning, and Ursa Wren nods, casting a glare about the room herself.

Someone snorts. “ _Jetii_ should hand his blade over, if he were really to be in – eh, _good faith_.”

Ursa Wren stiffens, and Obi-Wan’s knuckles tighten, before he relaxes quite readily. “If _Ad Be Wren_ wishes.” He remarks with a frightening kind of ease, turning the hilt in hand and offering it to her. Satine thinks she hears the speaker choke on their own saliva, which would serve them right. She herself is finding this unbelievable, but Obi-Wan appears utterly sincere, and his gaze all but sparkles when he catches her eye. “I am quite capable with _or_ without it.” He smiles sweetly, making that declaration for all the room to hear and contemplate.

Satine knows, when Sha’me lifts her hand to press her knuckles to her lips, that the twi’lek is repressing a chortle. Satine narrows her eyes at the jedi padawan, and so does Ursa Wren. The younger girl shakes her head in one tightly controlled gesture. “No other guest in this household has been asked to hand over their weapons. I will not be asking it of you.”

Obi-Wan nods simply, and clips it back to his belt before clasping his hands together in front of himself in a gesture more at home with loose sleeves that tightly tucked silks in vambraces.

The startled and livid looks are not the last they receive, puzzlement and malice, surprise, indifference, and the rare glance of respect all follow Satine as she follows the young Heir before her through wide, slant-roofed corridors, some lined with tapestries, others with transaristeel views. The construction is heavier than she’s used to, but Kalevala and Keldabe, she reasons, never did have to worry over snowpack and freezing temperatures and the hazards of large, dangerous wildlife.

The art interests her, and she recognizes the style of the detailing in some of the décor as a descent of the same traditional patterns that suffused Mandalorian artistic design throughout the sector.

Passion for the arts was one of the few things the New Mandalorians had not rejected.

It’s a simple thing, but it reminds Satine that for all their differences – and the animosity therein – her people _were_ one with each other, once. They could be again.

She brushes her fingers across the three lilies on her breastplate, lets her fingernails scrape against _beskar_. The edges are rough. She doesn’t doubt there is still ash under her fingernails that she couldn’t scrub clean. Her boots, though black, are scuffed and scratched and mud-stained. There is a rip in her leggings just below the knee, hidden where it’s tucked into her boot, and she honestly can’t remember when the split appeared. There was a similar tear on the elbow of her sleeve, which Obi-Wan had carefully mended for her with surprisingly neat stitches. There are darker traces in her silk shawl too, where Sha’me wasn’t quite able to get bloodstains out, though it is no longer obvious that that is what they are.

There was a time when Satine would have been horrified to consider presenting herself as such, in anything less than perfect, as anything less than perfect. Today, she considers it a boon that at least her hair is genuinely _clean_ and her armor polished. She hopes the dark circlet on her brow detracts from the smudges she noticed under her eyes – she hasn’t been sleeping well. Obi-Wan helps, but he can only distract her so long from her thoughts, and he can’t protect her from her nightmares. Not while he’s asleep himself, at least.

“Lady Kryze.”

Satine looks forward, lifting her chin as well as her gaze as Lord Wren turns in her direction, side by side with a dark-skinned, white-haired elderly woman who can only be the Matriarch of Clan Murr.

Lord Wren’s gaze takes in Sha’me Betoya of the Haat Mando’ade and Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Jedi Order at her side and she does not miss the faint grimace at the edges of that look, but when it settles on her, it holds only speculation and the same formidable authority his daughter carried so well. “It’s been quite some time since a member of your Clan has graced my household.” He remarks.

“The last time my father attempted to visit your household, Lord Wren, his vessel was shot from the sky.” Satine says simply, and ignores the sublte way Obi-Wan shifts, likely wanting to have known that _before_ he let Satine set foot here.

“A misunderstanding.” Lord Wren replies coolly.

“A clarification, in fact.” Satine refutes. “That the loyalties between Clan Wren and Clan Vizla outweighed the loyalties between Clan Wren and Clan Kryze. It’s understandable – those ties are far older. Simply declaring that your Clan would pay fealty to House Vizla over House Kryze, however, would have sufficed.”

“He did survive.” Lord Wren points out thinly.

Satine feels cold rustle through her, and recognizes that Lord Wren realizes his error the moment it left his mouth. Still, the grief remains, and the anger that follows, and the tiredness of the burden of it all.

“How fares my little brother?” Lady Murr interjects bluntly, with a voice as coarse as a strills backside.

Satine turns her attention to the elderly woman and regards her. “Ronin Murr has attained a position of respect at the _Mand’alor’s_ side, and in so far as I am aware, is rather proud of his accomplishments in thrashing _verde_ in their prime both on and off the battlefield. He has also taken a foundling into his care, though you may disapprove.”

Lady Murr’s lips twists. “And why would I disapprove?”

That she doesn’t disapprove of her _little brother_ wholesale is telling enough, but Satine will not point that out. A woman of her age still in command of her Clan? She is either too well respected to be challenged, or no challenger is up to the task of defeating her. That speaks volumes, either way.

Satine looks to Obi-Wan and tips her head. He nods and answers for her. “The foundling in question is a Jedi Padawan whose _Baji’buir_ was murdered by _Kyr’stad_.”

Lady Murr hums, though it is more of a grumble. “He always was a tad _eccentric_.”

That is not a word Satine would use to describe Ronin Murr.

Lord Wren’s mouth tightens with a combination of impatience and unease. Satine gets the feeling that he is conflicted about the decision to bring her here. She gets the feeling that Lady Murr is _not_ – but whether that is to Satine’s benefit or detriment, she cannot tell.

They have decided nothing yet, the two of them, in making an invitation towards her. This was an act, she thinks, of doubt, not of decision. She _could_ sway them, she has the opportunity before her to do so, but it is not going to be so easy.

“Lord Wren, Lady Murr, you have summoned the _Jorad’par_ of the _Mando’ade_ to speak with you.” Satine steps forward, passing Ursa Wren, who watches her with sharp observance, and moving to stand before them. “Enough pleasantries. Here I am.” She insists, splaying her arms and lifting her chin. “Speak with me.”


	57. Chapter 57

Satine bows her head, rubbing at her aching temples and catching a glimpse of herself in the polished surface of the table.

The situation as it stood was a complex one, and for all she might like to decry _Kyr’stad_ wholesale – as the New Mandalorians have – she must understand their beliefs, their principles, and where they come from, if she ever hopes to reconcile with them. So she listens, even if it is hard to hear. Some of the facts and issues she is already well aware of, but others come to her in a different light when presented by someone with different biases.

Everything that is happening today, she is coming to understand, coalesces back to the events at Galidraan six years ago. Because six years ago, Mandalore had been left without its _Mand’alor_.

Before that – Fett hardly _governed_. That isn’t to say he didn’t attend his duty as the avatar of the Mandalorian beliefs – he upheld and exemplified the Creed, observed and settled disputes, attended matters of tradition and faith, and honored the supercommando code Jaster Mereel before him had imposed. 

None had questioned his right to _be_ the _Mand’alor_.

But what he had done _as_ _Mand’alor_ ….

Mandalore had been and remains a decaying sector. The past few decades had seen an escalating increase in economic and ecological decline. Mereel’s supercommando code, which Fett had adhered to, had served several purposes. The first was to give a modern review of traditional practices, making them more acceptable to the galaxy at large. The second was to create a way for Mandalorians to uphold those traditional practices _without_ inciting war with the Republic. The third was to provide an admittedly non-traditional source of income for a sector in dire financial straights.

But _Kyr’stad_ had not seen it that way. They had seen their warrior class turned into mercenaries and bounty hunters and muscle for hire. They had seen it as an insult to their heritage, the act of selling Mandalorian honor and skill, fighting for coin, rather than _conquest_ , rather than _cause_.

 _Kyr’stad_ had spit upon the idea. They wanted to reclaim the old ways, to _take_ what their people needed, by right of conquest. They saw Mereel’s way as cowardly, bowing to the ever growing outside influence of the Republic, and the more direct and oppressive influence of forces such as the Mining Guilds and the Trade Federation, which seemed determine to strip what little Mandalore had left from their grasp.

But _Kyr’stad_ was not the majority. Their voice was not the voice of the people. They comprised then perhaps a fourth of Mandalore’s population, whereas the New Mandalorian movement held favor over nearly a third. The people trusted and approved of Fett’s _Haat Mando’ade_ ; Old Houses, Neutral Clans, and New Mandalorian alike. Even those who were inclined to agree with _Kyr’stad’s_ principles without outright supporting them had looked just as favorably upon the True Mandalorians _._

But after Galidraan…. with the _Haat Mando’ade_ out of the picture, with the choice between condemning their history and culture and systems of belief to New Mandalore, or returning to their more archaic and admittedly violent heritage under _Kyr’stad’s_ way so that their people could survive…

Satine closes her eyes. Her stomach churns, and she wishes she’d eaten more at breakfast, but her appetite appears to have become a victim of her nerves. She’d understood the horror of Galidraan when it happened, but she’d been a child. Understanding it now, as a young woman standing in her father’s position…

Had Adonai Kryze been anything less than he was, _Kyr’stad_ would have taken Mandalore then, by favor just as much as by might. But Duke Adonai Kryze _had_ been everything that he was, and they were held back by his sheer uncompromising determination not to falter, by the skill and force with which he’d struck a balance of mediation – and by the discovery and condemnation of their treachery, using the _jedi_ against fellow Mandalorians instead of challenging them directly. So the stalemate had remained, New Mandalore pushing harder than ever for reform, _Kyr’stad_ growing more and more zealous.

The rest of them, trying to hold ground in the middle, the future utterly uncertain.

 _Kyr’stad_ needed time to recover their forces after Satine’s father had hunted them down in the wake of Galidraan. During that time, New Mandalore had entrenched itself, more vocal and more flagrant in rejecting Mandalore’s past, its history, its traditions.

In the wake of Fett’s absence, Tor Vizla had appeared as the only real contender for the next _Mand’alor_. Duke Adonai Kryze wouldn’t – _couldn’t_ \- take it, though the interim responsibilities fell to him. The nature of a _Jorad’alor_ was not the nature of the _Mand’alor_. That was one of the things Bo-Katan had never accepted, that her father would not claim the mantle in spite of the circumstances, but Adonai Kryze had known himself well, and there was a _reason_ the _Jorad’alor_ and the _Mand’alor_ were not the same entity. There were a _thousand_ reasons, and it was as rooted in their culture as the Creed itself.

So _Kyr’stad_ had faced a dilemma; while Duke Kryze held favor and popularity, taking Mandalore from him _would not_ succeed, not without the sway of the people. So Tor Vizla had bided his time, weakening Duke Kryze’s hold on Mandalore, on its populace, slowly working towards the then inevitable transition of power - and then out of the black had come Jango Fett.

This, Satine is led to believe, is where the _trouble_ began. From Death Watch’s perspective. This is where Tor Vizla had become incensed, and _Kyr’stad_ had become less of a movement and more of an uprising, refusing to accept their efforts where made for naught by the simple virtue of a single man having failed to die.

While everyone knew what kind of man Fett _used_ to have been, they hadn’t known what kind of man he'd be four years gone and resurrected from the litany of the _Haat Mando’ade_.

Would he still follow Mereel’s way? The way that had already failed him, failed their people? Mandalore was on the brink, not just of war, but of collapse. What did he expect to do? Something _had_ to be done. So they waited, and watched, and saw little, save for the inexplicable connection between Fett and the Jedi that had been their enemies.

 _He’s not the same man_ , Death Watch and their allies had decided. _Not half the same man. He’ll fail again. Fail us again, bow to the Republic and their Jedi dogs and put chains on Mandalore_.

And people believed.

And yet…. Tor Vizla did not _challenge_ him.

But the war had begun regardless.

Then Duke Kryze had died, and they expected his heir to be a mouthpiece for the New Mandalorians, hastening a cultural decline and making victory all the more a necessity.

If the Speaker for Mandalore itself – an interim Speaker by accident of succession or not – decried the warrior traditions of Mandalore as aberrant, and upheld the ideals of the New Mandalorians as the future of their people… Many of her people would have turned away from her. But many would have listened, particularly _because_ of whose daughter she was, and how her predecessor, her _buir_ , had died. The _Manda’lor_ could be challenged, but to murder the _Jorad’alor_ without dire and irrefutable justification, the embodiment of the voice of the Mandalorian people? There were entire Clans that have sided against _Kyr’stad_ on that alone, their honor demanding it.

But as for Satine herself, Lord Wren and Lady Murr concurred, she did in fact have seemed to be that mouthpiece for New Mandalore.

Until she hadn’t been.

And that…. had not been expected.

“So you are wondering now whose cause better suits you?” Satine remarks, looking up and bracing her arms on the table.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Lord Wren inquires shrewdly. Down the table, his daughter watches, straight backed in her chair, dark almond gaze flashing as it shifts back and forth across them. Satine happens to be watching her when she glances aside at her father’s inquiry, a hard flash of recrimination crossing her young face.

“No.” Satine replies with scathing civility.

“Pardon?”

Satine offers the man a cold look. “Lord Wren, you would perhaps do well on Coruscant. You have a politicians mind. But this is _Mandalore_.” She’d forgotten that herself once, that Mandalore was more than just literal worlds away from the society circles of the center of the Galactic Republic; that its people _were not_ bound by the same rules, the same interests and motivations – _refused_ to be bound by them. “Either you are Mandalorian and Jango Fett is your leader, or you are something else. Tor Vizla has no right to the title if he refuses to actually challenge Fett for it, and if _he_ has no right to it, _you_ have no right to follow him and call it Creed.”

“And what right does _Fett_ have to it?” Lord Wren growls out with derision, refusing to be cowed in critique by the young woman before him.

“ _Fett_ , “ Satine growls out his name with the same cold ferocity, but the inverse of Lord Wren’s lack of respect. She and Fett rarely see eye to eye, but she _will_ give him his due, as he has given her, “ was confirmed as _Mand’alor_ by the _Mando’ade_ after Mereel. That is irrefutable.” She stares back into his dark almond eyes, daring him to question it. “ Or do you believe he lost the title at Galidraan? To the _jetiise_? As I understand it, his defeat was not exactly accomplished by single combat, but if you _insist_ , I’m sure we can inquire as to which of them might like to claim that feat regardless.”

“We are not suggesting that!” Ursa Wren declares sharply, palms pressing flat on the table, glowering at her father, and then at Satine.

Satine sighs and reels back her temper. It was unfair of her to use their hostility of the jedi as a tool in her favor, but she cannot abide their refusal to acknowledge that they preach traditionalism and yet refuse to honor it when it comes to this.

Satine draws in a breath, draws back her shoulders, and tries again. It has been a long couple of days. She has listened, she has made inquiries and suffered what was only just shy of an inquisition and tolerated much that would otherwise grate against her sensibilities. She would like, now, to actually make something of that effort. “We have concluded, have we not, that we are all of us simply trying to find the best way forward for our people? That we none of us wish to see Mandalore fall to ruin? Be it through the eradication of our traditions and culture or the mutual self-obliteration of our society?” Her tone still comes out sharper than she intended, but perhaps that is for the best. None of them before her would be swayed by a gentler delivery.

“Did we?” Lady Murr drawls hoarsely, casting an impatient look at her compatriot. Lord Wren nods, though his expression is still displeased.

“We are all traditionalists, are we not?” Satine presses on, flatly ignoring the antagonism between the Lady and the Lord, and Lord Wren’s perpetually curled lip.

“That is a bold question from a young lady who not so long ago was very ready to throw her traditions away, to condemn them.” Lady Murr casts her gaze over Satine, one that has yet to stop measuring her up. For all of her blasé attitude, the elderly woman had unyielding principles, and no short amount of pride. She treated it as her right to disparage those who failed to meet her standards.

“Because I believed that if our people did not move forward with drastic change, then our people would die.” Satine argues firmly, refusing to accept such condemnation. She acknowledges her errors, but she will not let them be used to belittle her when it is so clear she has _learned_ from them. “An oversimplified belief, I realize, with an underestimated cost that I blinded myself to for the sake of hope, but little in my life has mattered more to me than the effort to see that we don’t end up killing ourselves.”

Lady Murr acknowledges this with tip of her head, mouth thinning out in pinched reserve, a balancing act between respect of Satine’s spirit and distaste for her choices and for the elements she represents which do not fit into Lady Murr’s worldview. “Then your point, _Jorad’par_?”

“This should be settled by tradition.” Satine asserts strongly, looking them both in the eye. “Tor Vizla _must_ challenge Jango Fett. Do we agree?”

“ _Yes_.” Ursa Wren leans forward from her place farther down the table, where she is meant to be an observer, her dark almond gaze fierce and pointed. Her father scowls, but seconds his daughter’s vocal assent with a short nod. Lady Murr hums and drums her finger on the table, thick and blunt with callouses.

“Agreed.” The elderly woman nods decisively, but with an air of tiredness. “But we cannot speak for the man.” She warns.

“No.” Satine understands that, accepts that. She never entertained the idea that they could or would speak on behalf of all of _Kyr’stad_ , or even a majority of _Kyr’stad_ , let alone for Tor Vizla himself. “But I can speak for you. For all of Mandalore. _I_ will demand that this challenge be made. And when I do.” She pins them both with a keen-edged, steel cold stare. They don’t have to speak for all of _Kyr’stad_. They just have to speak for some of them, and that is _enough_. Enough for what Satine needs, at least. “The two of you will stand with me.”

 _I risked my life and all that rides upon my shoulders to be here_ , Satine thinks, not asking. _Do you have it in you to risk the same?_

If they didn’t… If they didn’t, they had no right to call themselves Mandalorian.

Lord Wren lifts his chin. His lip curls. “ _Cun oyay_.” He mutters, a banked fire in his gaze that matches the burning pride in his daughters eyes as she repeats the oath with unflinching conviction. Satine wonders if it weren’t Ursa Wren’s counsel that had brought her father to the table in the first place.

“ _Cun oyay_.” The Duchess repeats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
> Cun oyay - 'our lives' shortened from from 'our lives for Mandalore.'


	58. Chapter 58

They set up outside on a rooftop landing platform, the heated structure keeping the pad clear of snow. Icicles and frost glitter on the railing, tall, deep green pines and black and white snow-capped hills sprawl out under a dark sky. Obi-Wan breathes, his bucket in his hands, and his breath turns to a glimmering mist. Bright guidelights are set up, and the swirls of falling snow flash and burn like sparks when they come into view.

Satine stands in the forefront, clad in a long-sleeved, knee-length dress with that layered upon layer white, lilac, and maroon. Her _beskar_ bracers, greaves, and chest-plate gleam at a high polish, the gold lilies on full display. Clasped over one shoulder is a velvet like black fur cape. Clan Wren had more than one seamstress and tailor who had been too happy to help. As it has been since they arrived on Krownest, Satine’s hair is left loose, that black circlet resting atop it.

Snow catches in the silver-blonde strands, teased by a cold breeze, and glitters over her black cape.

She looks young and powerful, both vulnerable and untouchable, the representation of all she hopes to embody – Tradition and Power, New Beginnings and Justice, Integrity, Unity, Vengeance, and the Prosperity of Mandalore.

Behind her to the left is Lord Wren in cold iron grey and near-gold yellow edged in silver and Lady Wurr, her armor a deep brown, almost black, covered with the bronze markings of her clan, both in full _beskar’gam_ , but with their buckets tucked under their arms, so that there can be no question of their identity. Opposite them, behind Satine on the right, is Sha’me Betoya in her full kit, her shoulders bare, revealing the _Haat Mando’ade_ tattoo on her well-muscled arm, but a heated scarf wrapped around her neck, which made steam coil up from her collar and shoulders. Beside her, in pale grey armor and a dark teal bodysuit, is Mij Gilamar a disgruntled twist to his mouth as he represents the clan he married into.

Death Watch and True Mandalorians, shoulder to shoulder, backing her together.

Just to be standing with them, Satine seems to burn bright against the world, illuminated by the validation that her dreams were possible, that here was _proof_. It brings power to her already intense gaze, strength and certainty to her voice, enriches the grace and confidence in her posture, and if Obi-Wan could fall any more deeply in love with her…

His heart is pounding, his senses keyed up for danger, and pride sings in his chest.

A technician adjusts the holo-transmitter one more time, checking in with another over the comm. Snow crunches, and Obi-Wan glances at Ursa Wren stepping up beside him, both of them only here as witnesses, though he thinks the Heir of Clan Wren would rather be standing in her father’s place.

Satine catches his eye one last time, her skin pale with the cold, drawing a bit of color out of her cheeks and nose, the edges of a few of her scars peeking up vividly over the ruff of her furred cape.

 _This is it_ , the look in her eyes says, burning with belief and nerves and inevitability. Everything they have done and hope to do – this is the moment it matters most.

Obi-Wan smiles, shivering, and quietly crosses one fist across his chest, saluting the Speaker of Mandalore with absolute faith and deference, not as a young man who is utterly in love with her, but as a Mandalorian willing to give everything he is to the cause she believes in, trusting her voice to speak for him, to speak for all of them.

She blinks, and her expression softens warmly, fond and honored. She draws in a chill breath, nods, and turns towards the holo-recorder. The technician holds up four fingers.

Three.

Two.

One…

~*~

Ben sits cross-legged on the durasteel slab serving as a bunk, bare toes resting in the crooks of his knees, one hand laid over the top of the other over his exposed ankle, head bowed. He’s not quite cold enough to shiver, but his skin prickles with it, and the hollowness of hunger burns inside. Missing a single days sustenance when he was already on starvation rations coupled with an increase in activity was not in his favor, even if his rations resumed the next day. He resists the urge to lick his chapped lips, his mind clinging to physical sensation in spite of his attempts to negate them, turning in and in on itself as the faint hum of the energized field around his cell grows louder and louder in his ears, buzzing against his thoughts, everything too sharp and hazy at the same time.

“It’s awful quiet out there, General.” Cody says, his voice a welcome reprieve to his isolation.

“Not so quiet.” Ben murmurs in response. If he opens his eyes, he doubts the man will be there. He has the idea that he should certainly hope that if he opens his eyes, the man isn’t there, but… but it’s _so good_ to hear his voice, to grasp at the suggestion of his presence.

Pre has yet to visit for what passes as Ben’s ‘today’. He's late, and Ben was trying not to trap his thoughts in the possibilities of what that could mean.

There, quieter than Ben’s heartbeat, quieter than the buzzing in his ears, is the faint rumble of some impressive, distant movement, shuddering through the ground. The ground below him, and the ground above. His cell, he thinks, and the complex around it, are subterranean. Ben has hopes he might even still be on Concordia. He knows Death Watch had made bases out of old, disused mines there before, though he hadn’t known how long established they might have been. If he’s lucky-

The next rumble is stronger, not just a distant sound, but a faint shudder he can actually feel. Maybe not so lucky, if the entire thing collapses around him, who knows how many kilometers deep.

“Seems like a storm is coming by.” Cody reports, child of Kamino that he was. “Or someone raising hell.” He adds, a soldier through and through.

The corner of the Jedi’s mouth curls up at that. “You’d know all about that.” He muses.

“Us boys were the best at it, sir.” Cody retorts, voice full of pride. It fades, with what he says next. “But it ain’t our troopers up there.”

“No.” Ben sighs quietly, sadly. “No, I don’t think it is.”

“We’re still with you, General.” Cody replies sharply, bristling at the thought that there might be doubt. “ _Vode an_. Always.”

 _Always_ , Ben wonders at that. How can it be _Always_ , when it was now _Never_ , at the same time.

“You aren’t here either.” Ben whispers painfully.

Cody doesn’t respond. Cody _isn’t_ there.

Ben could choke on the absence.

“But someone is.”

Ben’s eyes fly open, and standing before him – standing before him-

The tall figure is kneeling, loose dark blonde curls framing a tired face carrying an affectionate expression as he looks up at Ben, one eye a searing desert-sky blue, the other a gleaming, unsettling gold.

Ben stops breathing, fear and longing tight in his chest. “Anakin?”

A smile, sharp and pleased and sorry. Those eyes rove the cell, a disgruntled look that flashes into something dangerous before its washed away as his gaze comes back around to Ben again.

The cell shudders, and those beautiful, horrible eyes glance up. “Love can drive us to do terrible things, can’t it?” He murmurs absently, one hand reaching up to touch the edge of the scar on his face. The mark seems more severe than Ben remembers. Ben can’t speak, still can’t _breathe_. Anakin looks back to him, and his smile is caring, and sad, and full of pain. “But amazing and selfless things too.”

He looks around the cell again, perturbed and almost…annoyed, and looks deeply over Ben’s face. “I didn’t get it right.” He mutters. 

Ben sucks in air, reaching out. “ _Anakin_ -“

“You’re not alone, Ben.” Anakin stands in one fluid movement, seeming bigger than he ought to be, as if the world world curved into him. “Even when you are.” He smiles, and his eyes brim, and Ben wants to know what’s _wrong_. “I’m sorry." He says, voice thick with it. "Thank you. I love you too.”

He’s gone.

Ben cries out, lurching to his feet, but there is nothing to grasp, there is no one there. He’s alone.

Ben turns in a circle, heart denying it, hands reaching out, but he is _alone_.

He gasps in air, and gasps in air, and draws his shaking hands back from their fruitless search Ben covers his face, digging his fingers into his scalp, and keens low in his chest.

 _That, Ben Naasade_ , he tells himself, trembling from head to toe, _is not good_.

~*~

Considering her _buir_ has been the embodiment of Mandalorian wrath since his _jetii_ was taken from the battlefield, Bo-Katan had presumed that the merciless, seemingly endless drive of furious energy that was both burning and ice-cold and destructive to anything that got in his way was as terrifying as her _buir_ could get.

She has seen him tear through men and women with the darksaber like some monstrous, vicious machine, coldly unaffected by his own brutality even when the carnage he wrought made her sick to her stomach – and she had thought Death Watch had cured her of that. She’s seen the look in his eyes when he cleans his kit of the gore; clinically methodical, his blood-fury utterly unsatiated, an abyss behind them that says that he will stop at absolutely nothing, that he will not falter or balk, no matter how cruel or gruesome or horrible things might get, how much destruction and misery he might perpetuate and leave in his wake, until he _is_ satisfied, until he gets what he wants, no matter the cost.

 _All this for a jetii_ , she thinks, at first sourly bitter, until he pauses only once, just once in all of this, to looks her over and lay a hand on her shoulder. There is one exception to his vengeance – _her_. All this for a _jetii_ , yes, but no less than he’d do for her.

Bo-Katan finds it easier to breathe, after that, even if no one else does, the dread glory of the _Mand’alor_ finally revealed to them. _This_ was the man who took on the mantle at just sixteen and _held it_. _This_ was the man who survived Galidraan. _This_ was the man who killed six jedi with his bare hands.

Bo-Katan doesn’t consider her _buir_ to be _safe_ like this, but she had more or less managed not to be terrified of him, right up until the moment they watch that broadcast. Till the moment it sinks in that Satine Kryze is on Krownest, the very bastion of _Kyr’stad_ , setting the challenge the _Mand’alor_ had been forced to wait for someone else to make.

Keldabe Stronghold.

Seven days.

 _"Settle this where it started and should have ended in the first place."_ Satine had declared. Bo-Katan blinks furiously, thinking about the ashes and rubble of her _home_. It was right. It was so wrong.

Bo-Katan wants to _throttle_ her sister, lock her up somewhere safe and impenetrable, and smelt the key. _Damn it, Satine_. What was she _thinking_?

“ _Mand’alor_ …” Ward utters, braver than most, and Bo-Katan turns. “We go there after her and it will be a blood bath the likes of which history would never forget.”

Bo-Katan sucks in a breath.

He’s not wrong. Concordia was hell, but Concorida had been one vicious dogfight after another for nearly a year, constantly in contention, a leading edge of the war-front for its resources and location. Most of it’s non-combatant populace had done the clever thing and left months ago, leaving the mines and encampments and age-old bases to be fought over, won, utilized, and fought over again. There was a lot of collateral damage, but as far as both sides were concerned, the moon was almost entirely a military target, and already in ecological despair besides.

Krownest wasn’t. Krownest was occupied and verdant, population centers and star-ports, agriculture and industry and long-standing households. People carried out their lives there. And Fett – Fett would drown that world in blood and ash and leave it barren behind him if that was what it took. He wouldn’t care, right now, if he left that planet nothing but another shattered, inhospitable wreck of craters. Whatever caution he’d had, whatever conviction and attempt at adherence to Satine’s vision that had held him back from bringing annihilation down upon them before –

He was beyond it.

Her _buir’s_ tan face is calm, the way the sharpened edge of a _beskad_ is calm – clear, cool, and dangerous. He takes a breath, turns to Llatts Ward, and simply nods. Then he leaves the room, his stride almost languidly smooth, as if what he has just seen doesn’t even touch him.

Bo-Katan swallows, and looks to Ward.

As Bo-Katan understands it, Jango Fett had felt indebted to Adonai Kryze in a manner which couldn’t be repaid, a debt carried for an act of failure on his own part that Duke Kryze had carried the burden of in his place. More than that, however, those two had respected and honored each other. They had been _friends_. They had been _vod_.

So she knew, she _knew_ , that he felt responsible for Satine; As his daughter’s sister; As his _vod’s_ child; And as the _Jorad’par_. He was vulnerable to her in a way he’d never be to Bo-Katan, because he owed the people who loved her, and he owed her, and yet she wasn’t his to claim, the way Bo-Katan or Adonai themselves were; so being unaffected by the fact that not long after his best friend has fallen into _Kyr’stad’s_ hands, Satine Kryze, his _Jorad’par_ , is there now in the midst of their enemy? It is _not_ possible.

Ward points after the _Mand’alor’s_ exit. “That’s worse, isn’t it?” He asks.

Bo-Katan says nothing. Ward is an intelligent man. He takes that as answer enough.


	59. Chapter 59

Bo-Katan tilted the wing of her fighter, sweeping through Concordia’s sky, and wondered if her sister had even considered what giving Fett six days to quell Concordia before the Challenge might result in.

Smoke chokes the air, and far below, the ground beneath her seems to boil, pockets of smoldering red from burning vegetation and streaks of yellow-blue fuel fires, the air shimmering with heat and fumes, and it stretches out for kilometers in every direction. Impact craters glitter – glass like from superheated sand-silt, and deep pits of collapse can be seen, where the underground bunkers and tunnels and mines gave way. Clouds build to the south, and Bo-Katan prays that the _ka’ra_ grant them rain.

She turns, and peels up, away from the planet. She had invited them to surrender to Fett. They should have. It might not have spared them, but it would have spared so much destruction. By the time she gets back, he’ll be done interrogating the few who did surrender, separating the young to be detained, and likely executing each one that remained that didn’t have the answers he wanted.

It wasn’t something Bo-Katan needed to watch again. He didn’t torture them – it wasn’t that. No, he was calm, collected, quiet. He asked his questions simply and straightforwardly, and either they told him what he wanted to know, or he let them keep their silence or ignorance forever.

Bo-Katan just wishes one of them would have a fucking answer. She thinks that even if the _jetii_ were dead, just _knowing_ might settle her _buir_ some. The speculation, the uncertainty, even she could admit it didn’t settle right, especially since he _was_ a _jetii_ , and there were…. rumors aplenty of what one might _do_ with a Force-Sensitive captive. They were rare and valuable and to this day, there was simply so much to be _learned_ about them, and not in the kindest of ways.

Bo-Katan delivers her fighter back to the fleet above Concordia, stopping in briefly with Intel, where Ward and Skirata informed her that Fett was finally ready to hand this operation – what pitiful remains were left of it – over and journey to Mandalore. Bo-Katan nods, thinking Skirata probably could have handled things if her _buir_ had turned them over two days ago, but Fett was nothing if not thorough.

“Anything on the retreat?” Some of _Kyr’stad_ had wised up and left, not so much retreating as running away when it became apparent that the _Mand’alor’s_ berserker offensive was only going to get worse for them.

“No, but they can’t have gotten too far. Word is _Kyr’stad’s_ running short on fuel these days.” Ward replies, and Bo-Katan nods, having heard something to the effect of supply being cut off in the Phindar system not long before Satine resurfaced on Kalevala. Bo-Katan had her suspicions, but her sister’s retinue was hardly reporting in on the regular. The _jetii_ had been keeping track of his padawan, but his updates had often been short and unspecific, only occasionally accompanied by a dump of data.

She gets waylaid by Keto and Var’de, the two seeming more and more inseparable, in spite of the shouting arguments they had on the regular. Maybe because of? The two fall into step with her, insisting they get to go to Mandalore for the Challenge. Bo-Katan grimaces, but she can’t see the harm in it. _Jetii_ or not, Keto seemed pretty shaken by Naasade’s abduction, and in real Mandalorian fashion, the event had made her all the more stubborn and determined as she made an effort to make a difference in some way. She kept busy, either assisting in Intel, or helping with repairs and fueling, or training with Var’de, or pointedly shoving ration bars at the Fett’s and making pointed suggestions that they ought to go sleep.

By the time Bo-Katan actually makes it to the other hanger, she discovers her _buir_ has already left, and stomps into her own ship, the girls right behind her, with brimming frustration.

~*~

“Lady Kryze, a word.”

Sha’me Betoya won’t say she’s surprised that Fett meets them at the landing, a cleared, secured plaza outside the scarred remains of Keldabe Stronghold. She will say, however, that the thrum of danger and coil of fear that spreads through the base of her lekku and shivers right down to the tips was unexpected. Something about the deliberate, contained calm of his bearing, the unyielding command in his clipped tone, and the absolute seething in his dark, molten gaze when it lights on Satine Kryze and stays there, waiting.

Satine is no fool. Her posture stiffens, and her color pales, fingers tensing as she lifts her chin and nods gracefully, stepping down from the ship and accepting the guiding arm Fett offers, the courteous gesture turned into something that seemed undeniably threatening.

Sha’me watches them walk in tense silence to Fett’s ship – a new one, apparently – and is glad she’s there to catch Kenobi when he finally makes his way back from the cockpit and tries to follow.

“Let them settle that, first.” Sha’me warns.

The jedi padawan glances up at her, blue-grey eyes sharp with concern. “Settle what?”

Sha’me has an idea, but if the boy doesn’t, that’s not her problem. “They’re the _Mand’alor_ and the _Jorad’par_. It doesn’t matter what it is. Let them _settle_ it.”

He eyes her with a frown, and then the other ship’s closing ramp, worry pinching at the edges of his face, but he nods, and Sha’me lets him go.

He whips back around a moment later with a flinch, one fist clenching reflexively, and Sha’me catches him again, squeezing his arm hard in the gap between his upper vambrace and his elbow. “ _Jed’ika_.” She says sternly.

He takes a breath and looks at her again, gaze hardened. “He’s …. _beyond_ angry.”

Sha’me feels a quiver in her gut at that, a small twinge of doubt, and can’t help but glance at the other ship. Her muscles tense, lekku hardening to reflect her grinding jaw, and she looks back at the jedi. “Angry enough to hit her?” Sha’me demands.

He hesitates, and her grip on his arm turns bruising. He doesn’t squirm, looking over at the other ship critically, breathing measured. “Not if she doesn’t hit him first.”

Not an impossibility then, Sha’me thinks. Just unlikely.

“Then let them settle it. There’s work enough for the rest of us to do.” She remarks firmly, and lets him go. He absently touches the spot where she’d no doubt left a bruise and nods, expression tight.

The firebombing had taken out most of the stronghold, but the old foundation still held, and by Satine’s estimation, that meant the ballroom floor ought to still be serviceable, if lacking a roof. If they could get it cleared, it would make an ideal place for a man to man combat by trial. They had a day – they needed to work quickly to see what could be done. If the ballroom couldn’t be cleared, the plaza would suit, though the open urban setting would be less contained than the already ruined husk of Keldabe Stronghold.

Ash and rain had mixed into a mire, mortar-like in the places it had dried, crumbled duracrete turning into a damp slurry where floors had given way and debris had pooled with the summer rains. Shattered transparisteel in rainbow colors glitters almost cheerily where the sun hits it, hidden in amongst the ruin like gems. Orikhid and Kenobi make quick work of obstacles that can’t be scaled under or over, and Sha’me will admit her stomach lurches every time they raise up hunks of fallen structure large enough to crush the entire lot of them should it come down again. It’s a matter of trust that she walks beneath them regardless.

She can tell Kenobi’s head, however, is back in the plaza, by the way he tenses and twitches, the way his gaze turns back and his jaw tightens seemingly without cause. Sha’me’s guess? The _Mand’alor_ is pissed and Satine is upset. But that? That’s not his place to interfere in, that’s not something he gets to guard her against. If she is to be the Speaker for Mandalore, she will have to learn to deal with Fett, black temper and oppressive authority and all.

At one point he even looks like he’s actually going to turn around and march back and Sha’me steps in front of him as he turns around, crossing her arms. He halts jerkily, a conflicted look on his face. “Running off to rescue her from the _Mand’alor_ will undermine everything that she is. Don’t you dare. She cannot stand as the _Jorad’alor_ if she can’t stand on her own two feet toe to toe with him.”

He looks frustrated, but he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, relaxes his jaw, and nods. He looks calmer, but also a little miserable. The boy is definitely in love, the Mandalorian twi’lek thinks wryly. He just needs to not be _stupid_ about it. Sha’me has actually been impressed with how the two of them seemed to be handling themselves, in spite of the circumstances. She’s not as impressed with their discretion, but teenagers were teenagers, a Jedi and a Duchess or not.

~*~

Obi-Wan bounds back into the ship, grime-coated and intent. He pauses only briefly outside the door to Satine’s cabin, knocking politely before pressing the door-key.

It swicks open and Satune lurches towards the door with a jerk, and he gets the quick impression that she is dismayed she forgot to lock it. Which is the least of his concerns.

Her pallor is nearly sickly, her silver-blue eyes red rimmed and smudged, making it quite obvious she’d cried. She turns around quickly, putting her back to him. “Obi-Wan, close the door.” She commands, her aloof tones kept cool and quiet in an attempt to hide a strained voice.

So she has been crying _and_ yelling.

Obi-Wan reaches for her, bristling. “What did he-“

“Don’t.” She cuts him off sharply, turning to glower at him for his indignation. Obi-Wan checks himself, chastised, reminding himself firmly that it is not his place to step between her and the _Mand’alor_. “I am not unaccountable for the things I do.” The young duchess says sharply, the edge of her tone wavering. “While I cannot credit Fett for his manner, he was hardly out of line. I don’t even know why I –“ She stops herself, sucks in a breath, and dashes at her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m _crying_.” She growls, frustrated as her tears well up again and her chest ratchets with an unsounded sob. She squeezes her eyes shut, stress and anger and the white-static sense of someone _overwhelmed_ rolling out of her.

Obi-Wan blows out a breath, risking her ire to reach out again, laying his hands gently against her arms, hoping to steady her. “Well, if all goes to plan, the future of Mandalore will be decided tomorrow.” He points out.

“That’s not a reason to cry. I can’t cry just because Fett –“ She cuts herself off, shaking her head and dashing at her eyes again. Obi-Wan would gentle her tears away, but there’s not much of him not currently covered in a mire of char and grit.

“No.” Obi-Wan acknowledges. “But it is a _lot_ , Satine.”

She glowers wetly at the wall, anger and ache all wrapped up inside her, being tightly pressed down, and Obi-Wan suddenly huffs a laugh.

“What?” She demands.

“Just… remembering the first time I found you crying. I wanted so badly to help you. Do you remember what I said?” Obi-Wan asks, as Satine frowns, her fingers finding his wrists and encircling them, holding on.

“I asked you if you believed in Mandalore.” Satine murmurs, puzzled by his train of thought. Obi-Wan shakes his head, smiling a bit.

“Not that.”

She purses her lips, a mild irritation overcoming her thoughts, distracted now. “ You… asked what you could do. You said you couldn’t end the Mandalorian Civil War for me, so what _could_ you do.”

His smile gathers strength, and he squeezes her arms a bit, feeling the strength of the lithe muscle underneath. “And I couldn’t end the war for you and I can’t. But if all goes well tomorrow, and, giving the _Mand’alor_ a little credit, you, Satine Kryze, just might have.” He says, hoping the enormity of all it took was worth the balance of that. Hoping it helps.

She stares at him, incredulity building in her gaze until she puffs out a laugh and shakes her head at the absurdity of him, and the almost painful earnestness with which he cut right through her barriers and into her heart. She pulls in a breath and looks back at him, fond and exasperated.

“Giving the _Mand’alor_ a _little_ credit?” She arches a silver-blonde brow. Then her smile fades. Her grip on his wrists turns tight, and she leans forward into him, until he presses his brow against hers. “I think you should go speak to him.” She murmurs quietly.

Obi-Wan feels himself pause, and her gaze fixes on his through her lashes, solemn and steadfast.

“If I’ve done my part right, the future of Mandalore will be decided tomorrow.” Satine shudders a breath. “And it is a lot. But I’m not the one it rides on.”

“You aren’t… upset with him?” Obi-Wan hedges.

“Obi-Wan.” Satine sighs impatiently, pressing her head against his like she can force some concept right through his skull. “If I am to be the _Jorad’alor_ …. He _is_ the _Mand’alor_. We can have as many personal grievances between us as we please, but none of it comes before Mandalore. _None_ of it. And my relationship with Jango Fett shouldn’t come between yours, either. I’m – I’ll be alright. But with your master gone… I just think.” She stops, tries again, uncertain. “He seemed….” She looks away, expression tight. She sighs, giving up. “You’ll see. Go see him.”

~*~

Jango briefly covers his eyes with one hand when a curt knock comes on his door, before he moves and answers it. “What?” He demands, already expecting his red-headed visitor.

Obi-Wan looks placidly back and Jango realizes, in an instant, that the boy has gotten taller than Ben. Just a little. His thought twist and fold around his _vod_ , turning molten, and then turning steel; cold, hard, glossy and unforgiving. The padawan tips his head a bit, and Jango steps back, letting the teen invite himself in. He does, brushing just past the Mandalore, and he swipes the darksaber on his way past, casual as you please.

Jango clenches his jaw and eyes him, and the _jed’ika_ scowls over the weapon. “You know there is a near symbiotic relationship between a lightsaber and its wielder?” The young man remarks, glancing at him.

Jango crosses his arms, unimpressed. “Are you here for a lecture?” He inquires, drawling coldly.

Blue-grey eyes hold his, damnably familiar. “It’s not my place.” Obi-Wan says simply.

Jango eyes him suspiciously, but the boy seems hardly perturbed, looking back down at the darksaber with a frown, turning it over in his hands. “The blade and the swordsman are reflections of one another. You hone yourself to the blade, it hones itself to you.”

“Is there a point you’re trying to make?” Jango asks bluntly, not liking that studying look in the young mans’ eyes.

Obi-Wan wraps his fingers around the saber hilt, and holds it out. Jango reaches out to take it impatiently.

“I can tell what you’ve done with it.” He says simply, releasing it into Jango’s hand.

Jango scoffs, taking the saber and tossing it onto a stand with more force than necessary, where it scrapes and clatters before it rests. When Jango looks back, Obi-Wan is still watching him with a familiar, patient and unexpectant look, like he can wait forever for Jango to decide to deal with him reasonably.

It hits him, suddenly and gut-deep, _exactly_ who is standing in front of him.

“About Ben-“ He starts, hands clenching.

“He’s alive.” Obi-Wan stops him, giving his head a small shake. “Finding him is just a matter of time, if he doesn’t find us first.”

That – simple, unshakeable faith. Jango hates that, he hates it because he doesn’t have it. He had been right there. He had been _right_ there, and _Kyr’stad_ had taken Ben, his best friend, his _vod_. Fury stirs in his bones, an old familiar black heat, hate running hot in his veins, drumming alongside his heartbeat, soaked through his thoughts, providing one perfectly clear focus that could sustain him for as long as he needed it. Obi-Wan has simple, irrefutable faith – Jango doesn’t. What Jango has is conviction – _Kyr’stad_ will pay for what they’ve done. That he _promises_.

“What are you here for?” Jango demands, giving up on trying to figure out Obi-Wan’s motives. That never really worked with Ben, and well. It never worked with Ben.

“Apparently, if all goes to plan, the fate of Mandalore will be decided tomorrow.” His lips quirk wryly. “I thought maybe tonight you could use a friend.” Obi-Wan looks to him, slightly hesitant but so earnest. It sinks through Jango’s chest like cold water, dousing and aching against the searing rage pent up inside, making him uneasy.

“You’re not Ben.” Jango says flatly, taking a step back. A small line appears between sandy-red brows.

“Obviously?” The boy says slowly, questioningly, like he’s not certain why it needed to be said and that – that’s just – _fuck_. Jango grinds his jaw and glares at the wall over the teenager’s shoulder. Something sparks in Obi-Wan’s young, blue-grey eyes and his shoulders tighten as he draws himself back a little. “Are we _not_ friends?” He asks flatly, as if the answer would be utterly unremarkable to him.

Jango snaps his gaze right, turning his glower on the young man, who looks back with a cool spark of defiance in his eyes, and a quiet, leeching uncertainty.

Jango turns and scrubs hand over his face and through his hair, growling out an oath under his breath. “I’m being an asshole.” He mutters. “I’m not going to apologize for it.”

He practically hears that boy roll his eyes. “And this is unusual because….?” He drawls sarcastically.

Jango’s gaze drops on the darksaber. He reaches over and turns it, lining it up with the edge of the stand. _I can tell what you’ve done with it_. He doesn’t believe for a moment that Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t judge him for what he’s done. Kid’s been judging him unrepentantly from the moment they met. But Obi-Wan is choosing to simply accept it, neither approving of nor condemning his behavior.

That molten knot inside his chest twists up again. _Ben knows I’m capable of worse, and he accepts it too. Why did I expect different_?

Jango turns back around, feeling some tight vice unloose from the crown of his skull, seeming to wind away from her shoulders and his chest and sink low, making him feel heavy and exhausted. “ _Jed’ika_ , it has been a shit few weeks.” He sighs, dropping a hand on the young mans shoulder.

Obi-Wan snorts, face twisting in a sardonic expression. “It’s been a shit few months.” He counters, and steps forward. Jango doesn’t so much embrace him as lend his weight on the kid, feeling his thoughts – not calm, but quiet some, vengeance and retribution not so demanding, not so all-encompassing.

“Yeah.” Jango huffs.


	60. Chapter 60

It is a blustery, clear, hot autumn day. Rooftops and balconies are crowded, but the streets are clear. Public holoscreens on buildings and over plazas are all displaying the same series of hastily arranged feeds around Keldabe Stronghold. Glimpses of the _Mand’alor_ can be captured, his _beskar’gam_ striking and powerful – an image only enhanced by the prowling, dangerous way he paced, waiting for the appointed hour. Duchess Satine Kryze is never far from him, a vision of grace and steely nobility in lilac and black – befitting a day such as this - with a rich red cloak thrown over her shoulders, her hair artfully arranged to pull back from her face, pinned with a single white lily.

When a trio of fighters appear from hyperspace above the planet, all eyes are on them. They make a slow, scenic descent, taking their time coming around the continent to Keldabe. The paint is clearly _Kyr’stad_. Crowds are silent, the crackling of background static on the holo seeming to swallow them whole.

Two fighters land together, the third continuing to circle Keldabe, soon escorted by a pair of _Haat Mando’ade_ fighters. They don’t seem bothered by it, continuing a swooping perusal of the city in long, lazy circles.

~*~

Satine meets the fighters as they land, an iron weight in her stomach and her pulse drumming in her throat, hard enough to suffocate her. She thinks she should feel proud of this moment, of having brought this all to fruition. She doesn’t. In her mind, she is standing on a balcony, watching her father give an address, and she is screaming at herself to warn him, but she can’t. She can’t, because the girl on the balcony doesn’t know what is about to happen.

Satine lifts her chin, the heat of the sun rippling over empty streets, melting off of towering buildings, burning across her back, turning her silver-blonde hair into a luminous beacon.

Two ramps drops, and two figures emerge, proud and defiant in their blue-on-grey-on-black armor, the Visla emblem in proud glory upon their shoulders. Tor Visla is a tower of a man, made more imposing by the heavy kit of his armor. Sweat beads and rolls down her neck, down her back, and her throat feels terribly dry.

At first, all there is as he strides towards her is fear. Fear, and the choking reality of grief. But with her grief – comes _fury_. It doesn’t absolve her of her fear, doesn’t lessen it, but it vies for primacy within her, and gives her the strength to face him and not flinch. Even when he pauses, helmet cocked to looked her over.

Behind him, the other figure, someone smaller and perhaps younger, she thinks, by their gait and their posture, pauses as well. Their fist comes across their chest in salute of her. Tor Vizla’s does not.

Tor snorts, a sound both derisive and rueful. “You are cleverer than I gave you credit for, girl.” He remarks, nearly laughing at some irony she can’t comprehend.

Satine says nothing. For once, she has absolutely no idea what to say. For once, she thinks her silence speaks more eloquently anyways. She stops looking at him. She looks past him, and he strides past her. Close enough to reach out and grab her, if he dared. He could. He could reach out and snap her neck with one sharp twist before Sha’me or Bo-Katan or any of the other innumerable guardians over her shoulders could act, even to take him out with a sniper shot.

He doesn’t.

He strides past her, marches up the blackened steps of Keldabe Stronghold and into its crumbling skeleton.

~*~

“Well, well.” Jango turns on heel, all his bridled energy abruptly brought to heel now that the anticipation is _over_. Tor Visla strides into the ruined ballroom, heavy boots making a distinct clip across the marble floor, dark figure cutting through the beams of sunlight as he moves and Jango moves to meet in the middle. “Here we are, Fett.” He spreads his hands, as if darkly amused, as if they have come to the conclusion of some grand game, as if-

Jango really doesn’t give a damn. “Vizla.” He clips out, noting that Satine slips back in on the upper gallery on the far side of the room, joining Obi-Wan there, another armored figure in _Kyr’stad’s_ colors with her. Obi-Wan moves to greet her like the lady she is, and escort her to a better position, not so coincidentally placing himself between her and the _Kyr’stadii_ as he does. Jango doesn’t focus on them in his peripheral. No, Tor Vizla has his _full attention_.

Vizla makes a show of considering their surroundings. “You wouldn’t think the seat of the _Mand’alor’s_ power would be so easily broken.” He remarks, in that deep, coarse sermon of a voice he has. He turns his focus back on Jango, who can all but see the sneer beneath the helmet. “But you never did claim this place, did you? A _Mand’alor_ who never actually lived on Mandalore. No wonder it fell.”

Jango glances up at the gaping maw where the stained glass ceiling used to be. “And here I thought that had to do with the battery of third-generation _besbavar_ class incendiaries you and your band of treasonous zealots rained down on the day Duke Adonai Kryze was murdered.” He drawls. “What a wonder indeed.”

Jango has little interest in any more of Vizla’s so-called pleasantries. He draws the darksaber and ignites it, feeling the familiar spark of focus take hold on him, the ready warmth against his hand, the inexplicable sense of balance from a weapon that did not really have balance at all.

Even half expecting it, watching Tor Vizla draws Ben Naasade’s lightsaber to hand drives a bolt of suffocating fury right through his chest, as black and tumultuous as the storm-edged oblivion of the darksaber’s blade.

On the gallery, Obi-Wan approached the edge, one hand wrapping around the railing. Then the blade comes to life, the padawan twitches,, like a _strill_ catching a sound it can’t stand.

The copper blade seethes, the thrum less a bone deep hum and more of an angry crackling, worse than the one in Jango’s own hands. The color isn’t quite right either – the violet is too present, making it difficult to glance at the blade, and muddying that brilliant copper color into something more a murky red. It seemed ill-tuned.

Now, Jango has held that blade in his hands, and that blade felt _dangerous_. Not in the sense of the weapons lethality, but in the sense that – as Ben had remarked off-hand – the saber _liked_ him. He had felt its power leeching right through his hand as if it might bond to his flesh, just as ready to consume him as help him. Frankly, he’d been glad to hand it back.

He has no fucking interest in finding out what it would feel like if it _didn’t_ like him.

He’s a little surprised Tor can even wield it, and a little unsettled besides.

Jango doesn’t salute. Even for an honorable challenger – which he does not consider Tor Vizla to be – he wouldn’t. He is the king. They may come for his crown, but until they took in in their bloody hands, he owed them no regard. Jango Fett has offered a salute to a very select few people in his life – to do so for a man like this would be an unforgiveable slight against those people, in his heart and in his mind.

Consider him utterly unsurprised that Vizla doesn’t salute either.

His blood drums, but his heartbeat is steady, ready; _eager_ , even. He twirls the darksaber, feeling it sing. A breeze stirs dust across the marble floor, beams of sunlight slanting through shattered windows and broken columns. Beyond them, it seems all of Mandalore holds its breath.

~*~

Obi-Wan breathes out slow, eyes on Vizla, eyes on Fett, trying to ignore the piercing, dangerous ring of his master’s lightsaber, discordant and nearly mocking - though who its mocking he couldn’t say. It sets him very uncomfortably on edge, as if today weren’t worse enough already. 

Fett can be patient when he wants to be, and the two well-armored Mandalorian warriors seemed locked in silent standstill, each waiting for the other to make a move. Obi-Wan cocks his head, sensing Satine’s burning sense of duty warring with a curdling, sickly reluctance to witness this, sensing the younger _Kyr’stadii’s_ rigid anticipation and bristling apprehension, sensing….

Obi-Wan turns his focus on Tor Vizla, chasing that elusive hint of danger that seemed bigger than a man ready to fight and kill, getting the impression that Vizla himself was waiting for-

Shock-pain-fear. Screaming horror and malice, fire and shattered transpariteel and crystal-

“Sundari! _Mand’alor_! Sundari is under attack!” One of the watchers shouts from the roofline, hand hovering over their helmet’s comm-set.

“ _No_!”

That wasn’t Satine and that wasn’t Obi-Wan, as Tor Vizla barks a laugh and Jango Fett throws himself at the other man with a snarl of vengeance, the blades meeting with a crackle of power.

It’s the _kyr’stadii_ beside them, slamming his hands against the railing in bitter anger and drawing a _beskad_ from his back, a black-painted blade with energized edges, a poor imitation of the darksaber, but just as deadly. He looks ready to leap, but it isn’t Fett his ire is aimed at.

Obi-Wan grabs him by the arm and shoves him back, slamming him into the wall behind them and locking a hand around the wrist wielding that weapon. “Who are you?” Obi-Wan demands calmly, Satine watching from a safe distance, held back with a gentle nudge of the Force, Obi-Wan quietly requesting that she _not_ step into danger at just this moment. He can feel the heat of her glare on the side of his face, before her steely silver-blue gaze shifts.

“Pre Vizla.” The _kyr’stadii_ spits out.

“Tor Vizla’s _son_?” Satine demands.

Pre Vizla jerks against Obi-Wan’s grip, shock passing through him when he realizes that in spite of only being held back by his hand, he _can’t_ move. “His _successor_. That _shabuir_ is not my father.” The young man snarls.

“And just what did you intend to do with that?” Satine glances at the blade, anger and poise a chillingly poignant combination, one that makes her seem very much her father’s daughter in that moment.

“I should have taken care of him myself!” Pre growls, though Obi-Wan can sense it in him – that Pre Vizla, as much as he _does_ hate Tor Vizla, he fears him. And once, very likely, just as much as he fears him, he had probably loved him.

 _That shabuir is not my father_! There had been something entirely too enraged in that, something entirely too desperate, for it to not have once been true.

“Calm down.” Obi-Wan commands quietly, sharing a look with Satine, the faint rise of her left brow matching his own. “That down there is not _your_ fight.”

They could hear the sizzling, thrumming whirl of blades, the crackling, snapping clashes, the spitting sear of damage to the marble floor or pillars, the singing metallic shift of _beskar_ in furious motion. “What do you know of Sundari?” Obi-Wan addresses him levelly.

Pre Vizla shakes his head, raising his free hand to pull off his bucket, revealing fair skin and shorn off hair, his scalp littered with small scars. “Nothing, I swear it! This wasn’t my doing.” He turns to look at Satine. “Please.”

“You came here with _him_.” Satine accuses, cold and believingly unforgiving.

“I came here to watch him die.” Pre seethes. “What he’s done – _osik_.” Pre grinds his jaw and look down with hatred and revulsion thick on his face. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” He looks back up, near colorless gaze boring and pleading as he looks at Satine, one scion of a great House to another. “I believe in a better future too.” He says, tone hard and reluctant and sincere. “I came here with him in the hopes that I could see to it that House Vizla had a place in that future.”

“You don’t believe he can win.” Satine prods, the question needling and suspicious.

Pre snorts, lifting his chin. “I don’t believe he deserves to, may the _ka’ra_ make it true.”

“You’d swear to Fett?” Satine challenges archly, stepping forward regardless of Obi-Wan's distress at it. “Swear to me?”

He hesitates. Then he swallows, something flashing in his eyes, and nods, looking past the jedi to Satine. “I would.”

Not exactly a trustworthy response, Obi-Wan thinks, but once more – it is not his place to judge and interfere here. So long as Pre Vizla does not mean Satine _harm_ …

Satine glances at Obi-Wan, who nods grudgingly. Pre hadn’t _lied_. Obi-Wan just didn’t trust his motivation.

Thunder rumbles, great, distant _ba-dom-cracks!_ of sound, and on instinct, all three of them look up.

The sky, as it has been all morning, is perfectly clear.


	61. Chapter 61

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Because of what just happened in Lebanon, i'm putting this here to say that some of the imagery in this chapter may be triggering.

Smoke was boiling from gaping rents in the dome, fighters swooping in and out through black clouds and tongues of flame. Beneath the shell, the air was nearly black, towers appearing unexpectedly, ready to shatter and shatter in turn any pilot unskilled enough to weave through them.

Searing red flames reflect off the once-pretty lakes and fountains of Sundari’s public parks, glint off transparisteel and turn everything not choked in the smoke a glaring, brutal red. People on the walkways and layered streets are running, but there is no where to _go_.

Sundari had become hell.

“We need to get the people out.” Keto says sharply, darting up behind the pilots chair, and Bo-Katan swears blackly in her head about not having thrown her and Mavi Var’de off the ship before she took off.

“I can’t do a damn thing for them until we take care of Death Watch!” Bo-Katan snaps, jerking into a sharp spin to avoid a collapsing tower, her fighter reflected on the windows that shatter behind her wingtip, too close a call to be counting.

“Then set me down!” Keto demands.

“What? Fuck no! This is a fucking warzone and you aren’t even supposed to be here!”

“I can help!” Keto snaps back, just as fiery and firm and unwilling to back down. “I’m trained for evacuations, even in hostile conditions. Let me do my job and you can do yours!”

“You can’t be serious.” Var’de mutters, staring aghast at her friends back, glancing out the viewport to the hellscape outside.

Bo-Katan can take her eyes off the sensors and the scene in front of her long enough to glare at the girls.

“I’ll jump if I have to.” Keto threatens, and Bo-Katan jerks, hammering down on the weapons console and dropping flares, almost certain there was someone on her tail and not taking the chance. There was too much heat and particulates trapped in the dome, her sensors were shorting.

“That’s suicide, you’d die." Bo-Katan retorts through gritted teeth.

“People down there are dying. I can _feel_ it.” Keto’s fists are clenched, her jaw hard set and her green eyes blazing. “I’m a jedi. I can do this, and I will, whether you help me or not.”

 _What the fuck do they teach you_? Bo-Katan thinks furiously, enraged and reluctantly impressed. The girl certainly showed enough grit and daring for a Mandalorian. “You’re going to have to fucking jump anyway, I can’t set down. Var’de, get my spare jetpack, you’re going with her. Keto – _can_ _you_ survive landing without one?”

“ _Yes_.” The girl insists, voice insistant, bright with victory and relief.

“Then get your asses ready.” Bo-Katan snarls at them, viciously unhappy. “And don’t fucking die.”

~*~

All across Keldave, screens go black as detonations rip through the power grid, rocking buildings and cracking roadways right through. A few structures collapse, more get caught in the blasts and catch fire.

That lone fighter turns on the city, tearing through it with its heavy guns before the _Haat Mando’ade_ blow it out of the sky. People scream and cry out as it comes down, taking more than one rooftop with it, plowing through a housing complex before finally impacting the ground, stopped dead in its own crater.

Sirens wail, fighters and emergency services alike scrambling to respond.

Satine darts to the railing, looking down on Fett and Vizla, but they’re still locked in heated contest. She dare not call out. She doubts it’s Vizla she would distract.

She turns away, anger and horror thick in her blood. “Obi-Wan, get me out there!” She commands.

“Satine – “ He cuts himself off, bites his tongue, and nods. Seeing her will give her people courage, and there is much _he_ could do to help. “Of course.”

“Take me with you!” Pre Vizla lurches forward, and Obi-Wan turns and shoves him back into the wall, hard. “Let me help!”

“Help?” Satine seethes. “This is on your House, your Clan, your people!”

“You can’t blame a man for his father’s crimes!” Pre snaps back at her, bristling.

Satine draws up, cold anger and authority. “Fine.” She declares. “You can help us, if you mean to do so. Just know that it may not save your clan. It may not even save you.”

Pre Vizla’s expressions twists darkly with anger and loathing, before it slackens with acceptance. He knows well that the crimes his people have committed against Mandalore have been great. Mercy was never to have been expected, not really. It simply hadn’t been a question of needing it before – when they had been so certain they would be the winners. You don’t need mercy from the defeated. “Just let me try.” He insists, and Satine allows it.

Obi-Wan grinds his jaw, but keeps his expression neutral as he offers Satine his hand. She takes it, gripping his fingers tightly. The glare Obi-Wan offers Pre is anything but neutral, when he reaches out and grabs the young man by the arm, dragging him into the shadow of the broken wall with them.

~*~

Jango rails on Tor Vizla with the fury of a hurricane, giving him no quarter, no chance and no choice to do anything but defend. Tor is taller, heavier, with a longer reach, but Jango is – at this moment – simply _better_.

And a lot more pissed off.

But Tor Vizla’s stolen blade still meets his every time, snarling with unbalanced power as the two beams collide. The _Mand’alor_ really hopes the damn thing doesn’t explode. He doesn’t know what the fuck his people would do if both he and Vizla died here today; doesn’t want to leave Satine Kryze in the same trap he’d left her father in.

He throws himself at Vizla, bringing the darksaber down on the angry blade like a war-hammer. Vizla lurches, staggering a half step back before meeting force with force, locking them together as they both tried to gain leverage and to not falter. Jango’s _strong_ , but Tor was fucking heavy.

“Sundari?” The _Mand’alor_ snarls out, as much a demand as an accusation. “ _Why_?”

He despised them himself, but he wasn’t going to stand for them being slaughtered for – for what? What _point_ did it serve? The fate of Mandalore would be decided _here_ , between Vizla and Fett.

“Easy target.” Tor laughs. “ _Weak_. I’m doing you a favor Fett. You can’t let weakness stand. Not anymore.”

Jango snarls, drives his weight into his grip, lifts and boots and slams it down Vizla’s knee. Tor grunts, weight wavering, and Jango shunts his blade high under Tor and dives forward, rolling over his shoulder and back to his feet as Tor staggers forward, no counter-force to hold him steady. Jango lunges at his back, but Tor’s quick for a man of his stature, and ruddy red-violet meets crackling black.

“You and that girl are too _soft_.” Tor twists his blade into one hand and throws a punch, making Jango lurch back and curse the other mans reach. Tor draws a blaster from his hip but Jango is quicker on that, drawing his own and shooting first. Tor drops it with a snarl, gauntlet smoking, and charges. Jango backs up quick and fires his jetpack, alighting into the air for a brief burst and coming down overhead, blade braced in two hands.

Vizla dashes it away with a heavy swing and turns the blade back quick enough to catch Jango across the arm.

The blade gutters out, but hot _beskar_ slag still sluices over his flesh, and Jango bites down a cry before _hacking_ at the other man with a dark, furious rain of blows, viciously intent of carving Vizla into _pieces_.

Vizla’s fast, but he’s not that fast. The single second it took to relight the saber cost him. He can’t keep up, and Jango blade slips through, rending into his side.

The black blade gutters out.

Jango sucks in a breath, caught off guard, and Vizla laughs before backhanding him with a closed-fist blow that jars his bucket hard enough to rattle his skull. Jango rolls and jumps to his feet, snapping his darksaber to his belt, the trick of their armor now fully revealed, and grabs his blaster before hesitating. His feet never stop moving, keeping ahead of Tor Vizla’s predatory stride in his direction. Vizla’s kit is heavy, which means less gaps and smaller seams. His blaster won’t be much more effective than the darksaber.

Fuck.

Jango had wondered why he’d chosen to wear all that extra damn weight.

Fucking _fuck_.

Vizla watches him, carelessly tossing Ben’s lightsaber aside. It was never the prize, really – the darksaber was. Jango has a dark feeling that Tor intended to kill him with his own blade; it would be just the sort of twisted, ironic banthashit the man seemed to enjoy.

Still, watching his best friends weapon, a weapon intrinsic to a _jetii’s_ duty and self-expression, be discarded so contemptuously made his blood boil.

“Mandalore needs to remember who we are.” Tor preaches, voice rolling off the ruined walls around them. “ _What_ we are.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Jango snarls, launching the tether in his vambrace, catching Tor by the ankle, and yanking. Tor hits the ground with a jarring, quick thud and rolls to push himself back up, but Jango is on him, digging the barrel of his blaster in between the joint at his armpit – attempting to, at least. Tor’s elbow snaps back and Jango’s visor shatters with a spiderwebbing of cracks, the display glitching in bright streaks of blinding color. Jango shakes his head, thrown back and fires his jetpack blind, but the display won’t shut off. His back slams into a wall, and he drops, ripping his helmet off with a curse.

Tor hasn’t even come after him, the smug son of a hutt.

“When the time comes,” Vizla says, drawing a _bev’kad_ from his back, a _beskar_ , triangular shaped bar with a sharp edge on the back and a wicked, pick-like hook on the end. “ there will be no room for weakness, Fett.”

Jango slides his feet, sidling along the wall. His boot hits something, and it rolls with a soft whisper. He glances down and snaps his gaze back up, but Tor looks like he’s got all the time I the world, like Fett is trapped, and nearing his end.

 _Like fucking hell_.

Jango darts down and bolts, scooping up Ben’s lightsaber and thumbing the ingiter. It lights, but it surges in his hand and he nearly drops the fucking thing. The blade shines a little less red-violet though, seeming more stable, a little more tuned. Not copper, but a fiery shade just touched with blue-violet.

His boots slip in the slick of dust on marble and Jango wrenches himself around before he falls, slashing wildly with the blade. Vizla jerks back on instinct, and Jango palms the darksaber off his belt.

Tor may be built like a fucking tank, but he’s _not_ invulnerable.

“Those won’t work.” Vizla sneers.

“You’re so sure of that?” Jango sneers back. “Go ahead and test the theory.”

Jango feints forward, and Tor jerks back. He has little time to enjoy the flinch, however, before that wicked hook is taking a brutally powerful swing right at his very unprotected face. Tor is in too close to block with the blades, and Jango jerks his arms up, catching the force on the blow on one shoulder. The hook scrapes across his armor, _beskar_ screeching against _beskar_ , catches a groove and yanks him forward. The blades sear right through the marble floor, and Jango’s wrists and shoulder jar to catch him before he lands face first on it too.

He spots the shadow of that _bev’kad_ just in time to turn and catch it in the side. This time it hits flesh, and _bites_.

A breathless cry tears out of him, more pain that sound, more a gasp than a scream, and Jango drops the darksaber to grab the hook. Tor yanks on it, and his vision turns red-black. Jango yanks back, and his vision turns white as it twists out of his flesh, scraping bone. Jango holds on to the weapon with all his might, and just starts bashing at Tor’s wrist with his other hand, lightsaber or not, trying to force his grip free.

Tor has more leverage, and his next pull takes Jango to his feet. He nearly buckles again, chest heaving, fire and ice clawing at his side.

Bile froths in his throat, heart thudding, adrenaline peaking. Jango spits, empty hand clapped over the wound, and eyes Tor with a hatred that will follow him into death.

“You’re not what you used to be.” Tor remarks, actually sounding _disappointed_. “A pity.”

Jango laughs.

Jango laughs, even though it hurts enough to stop his heart, hurts enough that he might vomit and black out, more of a stuttering in his lungs than anything else.

What the fuck does a man like this think he used to be? Does Tor Vizla _know_ what he used to be?

Jango used to be Jaster Mereel’s son, and Jaster Mereel’s son – he was a scrappy, stupid fucking kid off a farm with more anger than his bones could carry and more stubbornness than might, picking fights and getting beat into the dirt by boys twice his size because he just didn’t know when to fucking _quit_.

Tor’s a hazy-edged shadow standing over him, Jango half-bent double without realizing it.

“I am,” Jango spits again, sweat rolling down his face. “ _exactly_ who I used to be.”

Jango drops the other saber, swearing he can hear the indignant ring of it hitting the floor even inside his head. He staggers half a step forward and grabs the _bev’kad_ just above the grip with one hand, lunges and digs his fingers into the seal of Vizla’s bucket with the other. He turns, putting his shoulder into Tor’s collar, and wrenches his weight down with all the force and momentum he can muster. Tor drops. Jango does too, and he rips the _bev’kad_ out of the other mandalorians hand. He doesn’t manage to keep a grip on it himself though, and it slips out of his fingers and skitters across the floor. Jango’s other hand still caught in the seal of Tor’s bucket, and he jerks at the helmet, taking a beating before it finally wrenches free.

Tor rolls them both over, slinging himself on top, and Jango barely manages to avoid a blow to the face that would have shattered his jaw like cheap glass. He scrabbles, and it's a close, dirty little fight until his fingers close around the darksaber and he punches Tor in the nose with it gripped in his hand. Vizla rears back, nose streaming blood, and retaliates with a roar, grabbing the _Mand’alor_ by the chest-plate and slamming him back into the ground, the back of his head cracking hard, fireworks bursting behind his eyes.

Tor wrenches him up to do it again, and no doubt again and again and again, intent of spattering Jango’s brains right out on the marble floor.

Jango claws at Tor’s chestplate, scratching down the _beskar-cortoisis_ until his fingers dig into a groove. He jams the hilt of the darksaber there, and ignites it.

The crackle of the blade surrounds them both, Tor stilling a beat, as if uncertain what had happened-

Jango shoves him off and rolls, and it takes a several-step process of pushing himself up and bracing off his knees and lurching to his feet through agonizing pain and vertigo to actually take a stand. By the time he does, Tor Vizla is on his back, gurgling gasps rattling in his throat as he tried to breathe. The saber missed his heart, but it tore through at least one lung sure enough.

His lips move, keep moving, and Jango stares. He’s done. He’s _done_.

“- romised, they promised. Promised. I saw – I saw-“

Jango takes one heavy step forward. “What?” He demands, and Tor’s dark eyes roll to him, boring into him like black wells in an ashy-pallored, olive face.

Tor Vizla coughs, half a wheeze and half a laugh, blood speckling his lips. He’s dying slow, and Jango would put him out of his misery – he doesn’t hold with drawing out something like this, with making anyone die badly just for it; if he wants them dead, he’d rather they just _died_ – but if Tor has a piece to say, Jango will hear it.

“War is coming.” He rasps, and swallows thickly. A grin or a grimace crosses his face, twisted with pain. He coughs, wet and airless. “The greatest war e-ver seen….ha….shame. Shame to miss it. Be ready – our people - be ready -”

The blood drains out of his face, a cold chill takings its place that spread down through his limbs and twists low in his stomach. There is only war Jango Fett thinks that could be.

“ _Who_?” Jango demands, lurching forward. “Who promised you that?”

But Tor is out of time, choking in red now.

Jango snarls, ending it with the darksaber in one swift, absolute stroke and then stalking – staggering, really – a few steps away from the body.

“Fuck.” He swears, and then louder. “ _Fuck_!”

His head spins, and something very real and not so cold at all trickles down the back of his neck. His body lurches, threatening to topple, and Jango locks his knees and refuses to buckle, breathing in with a hiss.

“ _Mand’alor_.” Small steps, scrambling through a hole in the wall and darting out of the shadows. The little healer pauses, big dark eyes wide, and salutes briefly. “ _Mand’alor_.” The padawan repeats, Mij Gilamar following less spryly behind her. She only waits long enough for Jango to look at her and really see her before stepping forward un-cautiously. “Let me help.”

Jango grunts, but turns away and shuffles a few steps.

“No, no, stay still!” She entreats, trailing along, an anti-sep canister in hand no doubt ready to stick a needle in his neck. Jango stoops through sheer gritted stubborness and picks up Ben’s lightsaber. It offers a single purple spark, painfully seeming to drive right through the glove and skin, but he doesn’t drop it. He just swears at it before turning back to Gilamar, determinedly ignoring the way the world wavered.

“Get me in contact with-“

“No.” Gilamar says flatly, harrying him into sitting.

Jango glares.

“I need to know-“

“ _No_.” Padawan Casra chimes in brightly, and jabs the anti-sep into his neck.

Gilamar catches his gaze, and presses his fist briefly to his chest. “You’ve done enough today, _Mand’alor_. Your people - we’ll deal with the rest.”

Jango glowers at him. The field surgeon glowers back, unyielding, and finally, Jango nods and surrenders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: And i just cracked 800k on Desert Storm. 
> 
> Was not super sanguine about posting this right after what happened in Lebanon, due to the imagery involved, and my heart goes out to the people in Beruit.


	62. Chapter 62

“This is what you do?” Mavi asks, croaking in a strained voice as she at long last pulls off her bucket, breathing in clear - if dusty and dry – air. Hours and hours more they’ve been in and out of the dome, through fire and crashing towers and laser-cannon bolts, guiding people through the maze of city streets, near blinded by smoke, fishing them out of collapsed structures, braving fire and ruin to rescue them off of stranded rooftops and sections where bridges and walkways had collapsed around them, one or two at a time if need be, between Mavi’s borrowed jetpack and Serra’s weird _jetii_ tricks. It wouldn’t have been so bad, Mavi thinks grudgingly, if Sundari had a few jetpack-wearing citizens themselves, but New Mandalorians didn’t _wear_ armor.

Mavi had thought, more than once, angrily and near despair, that she would suffocate even with the filters in her helmet, or get boiled by the heat. She has no idea how Serra handled it, without armor, with only a makeshift cloth pulled over her mouth and nose and a pair of goggles streaked with ash.

“Some of it.” Serra replies, her skin and clothes near as black as her hair, where it wasn’t a scalded red, save the pale hollows around her cool green eyes where she’d pulled her goggles off. The padawan’s voice is squeaky and hoarse, and she coughs and coughs and spits grey phlegm with a crinkled look of disgust.

All around them is the result of their efforts, hundreds milling together a short ways from the burning dome; other pockets of similar smoke-stained, weeping, brokenly relieved crowds clustered around each exit Mavi and Serra could get to and get people to as they made their way through Sundari.

It had hardly been a two-woman effort, many had joined them once they’d realized what the girls were doing and moved beyond shock and panic to follow the padawan’s lead as if it were simply the natural thing to do. But they’d saved thousands, she thinks, the two of them today. There were still more to be rescued, so many more, but the fighting had died out, and the _Haat Mando’ade_ were taking over the efforts with far greater effect.

Without much ado, Serra lowers herself to the ground, flops on her back, and takes a big, heavy breath. She coughs, and then coughs harder, and scrubs a bit uselessly at her face. Mavi, sweat-soaked and exhausted, thinks that’s a fine idea and joins her.

“That was…. impressive.” Mavi says, after a few minutes of the both of them fruitlessly trying to clear their parched, smoke-strained throats.

“I didn’t do it to impress anyone, Mavi.” Serra replies. “That’s not why a jedi serves.”

“You did it to save people.” Mavi retorts. “I know that. It was just…. I don’t know if I would have done that, if it were me. It was really brave.”

Serra hacks a laugh that might have been a giggle in better circumstances, and is instead mostly a few humored wheezes. “You _did_ do it, Mavi. You were right there with me. It’s not as hard as people think, helping other people. It’s just scary.”

The Mandalorian girl nods at that. “Yeah.” She agrees. “I suppose so.”

She twitches a little, when Serra flops a hand over and catches hers, winding their fingers together, blistered and caked with grit. Mavi squeezes back just a little. It hurts, but its worth it for the grin her friend offers her, bright and exhausted and full of reward.

 _Maybe the jetii way_ , she thinks, smiling back, _isn’t so bad after all_.

~*~

Obi-Wan sinks down on a bench, watching Satine speak with the head of the Civil Fire Patrol Unit in this section of the city, discussing the damage and the long-term impacts they can expect. He keeps one eye on Pre Vizla too, who has been joined by a few member of his clan, none wearing helmets and following his example in passing out water and doing everything and exactly what they were told to by the Fire Patrol, who watched them with hard, suspicious eyes. They never got too far from each other, nor out of site of Satine and Obi-Wan, eyeing the duchess with strained uncertainty or a demanding sort of hope at times, like they were owed her mercy. They were all Pre’s age or younger, sons and daughters of Death Watch. Obi-Wan doesn’t think that’s an accident, that they are the ones trying to provide a save of face for their clan. No one would believe it from those of Tor’s generation.

Their presence causes more than one near-fight, but Satine quells them quickly with clipped words, firmly reminding anyone too ready to take out their own personal vengeance that Fett would deal with Clan Vizla. That seemed enough, for most.

Didn’t stop them from being threatened or spat at.

“I have had _enough_ of violence today.” Was the sharp statement and warning that generally shut down anything the reminder did not. Satine had earned her peoples respect, earned their veneration. That they were willing to let such a feud rest in her presence out of deference to her will spoke volumes to that.

Satine has a look of pensive absorption on her face as she leaves the Fire Patrol to their work and strides across the street to where Obi-Wan is taking his rest. No doubt her mind is whirring with details and possibilities, problems and more problems and potential solutions and alternatives.

The war is all but over, but there are hard times ahead yet for Mandalore.

Satine nearly trips when a child flees its buir and runs up to her, a crumpled paper flower in the little boys hand. Satine stops, nearly stumbling, and a smile blooms on her face when she sees what he’s offering. She crouches down, bright delight overtaking the frown that had been, and engages him in a few quick questions hat clearly makes the boy happy.

Obi-Wan smiles softly, and Satine happens to glance up and catch his eye. Faint color rises to her cheeks, and she makes a point of tucking the paper flower into her hair with the real one already there, letting the boy help. It ends up horribly disheveled, but it stays in place, and her hair was ash-streaked anyways, just like the rest of her, and smudged with duracrete dust.

Obi-Wan has handled more than one collapsed and collapsing building today, and was incredibly grateful that Orikhid happened to be in the same area when they needed to suppress a large fire, the Fie Patrol too occupied to be everywhere they were needed. It was difficult even with two of them, but Orikhid had provided much needed patience and experience for the task.

The _twinging-bruised-prickling_ sensation in his core was warning him he’d pushed himself rather far today in terms of using the Force.

Satine joins him, but doesn’t let herself actually rest, and he follows her when she informs Clan Vizla that they ought return to their vessels and stay there. After getting a grumbling, tense agreement and a small patrol of Haat Mando’ade to escort them to their ships, Obi-Wan Shadow-Walks Satine back to Keldabe Stronghold.

A cool pulse shivers through hi when they step out the other side, and the sudden too-light feeling of his body tells him he needs to maybe stop testing himself today. Next time they might not end up where he intends them to end up, and that can be exceedingly dangerous.

Fett is a mess and a half, Satine turning tense and uneasy over his injuries, which earns her Fett’s sharp glare, which in turns stiffens her spine and makes her turn away, reminded that she is not presently willing to be on civil speaking terms with him, injured or not.

Obi-Wan eyes the wicked hook of the weapon that had apparently taken a dig at his side and lifts his brows. He also notes his master’s lightsaber on Fett’s belt, but doesn’t ask for it. Fett can give it back himself, if he wishes, and Obi-Wan feels that it may ease the _Mand’alor_ some to do so.

He gives Fett a rundown, and Terhvho appears not too long after them with reports from Sundari, which Satine takes an active interest in.

They make a pair – the _Mand’alor_ and his new _Jorad’alor_. Obi-Wan has no doubt she will be elected. Fett is parked on a ruined wall, half-stripped out of his armor for medical treatment, blood caked down his neck, bacta patches covering his side, bandages wrapped around his left arm, looking exhausted and irritable while listening attentively, mouth a hard line. Satine is standing at his shoulder, clothes near grey with dust and ash, hair streaked with it, crumpled paper flower and distressed lily tucked unkemptly into her updo, which loosed more and more strands to fall in her face, her arms crossed and her face the picture of clear focus.

They look disheveled and done in and stubborn, undeniably Mandalorian.

Fett catches the odd smirk on Obi-Wan’s face and scowls at him, and Obi-Wan just smirks a little more, shaking his head. Fett rolls his eyes and ignores him.

~*~

The only reason Pre Vizla doesn’t end up dead the minute Jango Fett gets eyes on him is because he has the good sense to immediately blurt out “I know where the _jetii_ is! And I’ll tell you!”

Jango stares at the smoldering slew of pulverized rock and collapsed mountainside for a good long moment, the air still tainted with smoke and fumes, entire swathes of this side of Concordia still burning. There were coal seams in this moon. They’d be burning for _centuries_.

“Fuck me.” Jango swears.

He turns to glare at Pre Vizla, who has braced himself enough not to flinch.

“Obviously it was still accessible when I left.” The scion of _Kyr’stad_ mutters in his own defense.

Obi-Wan thinks it’s probably a very good thing that Satine is still on Mandalore, and not witness to exactly the scope of devastation Fett had wrought on Concordia. She would be…. beyond livid.

“Fuck me.” Fett swears again, turning to eye that collapsed mouth of the old mine with dark frustration twisting his face, genuine distress writhing from him. “I fucking _buried_ him. _Osik_. It’d take weeks to – _fuck_!” He gives in to an extra jolt of rage, throwing himself into pacing, needing to move, likely needing to fight, but no one here was going to volunteer.

“Let me see what I can do.” Obi-Wan suggests calmly, having been working to get a sense of his master through the bond, and having found it strangely lax on the other end before realizing his master must be in a trance. Obi-Wan frowns.

“The cell he’s in – it’s fully lit, isn’t it?” Obi-Wan directs the question at Pre, who scowls in confusion, but nods.

“Hm.” Obi-Wan frowns, looking at the scorched dirt in front of his feet. There is two kilometers of compressed earth and stone and ore between him and his master, and the biggest obstacle – ironically – is _light_. “We need to disable the power supply.” He looks to Fett. “If you can knock the lights out, I can get him.”

Fett scowls and crosses his arms. “I’m not gonna pretend to understand an ounce of the bantha-shite you two are capable of, but Ben had to _know_ where he was going to do what I think you're suggesting I let you do. I am not losing both of you just to try and rescue one on the chance you _might_ not end up fused in solid rock.”

Obi-Wan looks back squarely, not budging an inch from his calm, intent demeanor. “It will take weeks to drill him out. A Jedi can survive hunger that long, certainly – but not thirst, and not oxygen deprivation, if your planetary assault collapsed the ventilation as well. I know exactly where I am going.” Obi-Wan insists. “I’m going to my master’s side, which is right where I belong. I _can_ get there and I _will_. But you have to help me.”

Fett glares at him, then at the pit that had been a mine, and then at the sky. He takes a deep breath.

“Fuck me.” He mutters again, and stalks off, back towards the ship. He snaps his fingers at Vizla. “You, with me. I want everything you know on the layout and the power system down there.”

Pre hesitates, and then, realizing that _this_ was his chance to gain favor, leaps to it. “Yes sir.”

Obi-Wan eyes Pre’s back, but stays where he is, reaching down the bond with his master, feeling the thick, dull weight of the distressed moon between them, and that peculiar annoying interference of whatever it was that shielded the cell he was in, making the exercise not impossible, but more difficult.

 _We’ll be there soon, master_. Obi-Wan sends, knowing that in a trance, the older Jedi won’t be able to make sense of him, not unless he comes out of it, and Obi-Wan is not sure if he _can_ on his own. He’s not sure what sort of state his master is actually _in_.

_I promise._


	63. Chapter 63

It takes four days and some dangerously improvised EMP’s to figure out that the cell Ben is in is independently powered from the subterranean complex and Pre Vizla is definitely no engineer.

Obi-Wan stares at the schematic maps and the depth images until they’re burned behind his eyes, goes outside and _reaches_. He reaches deep, as deep as he can, and even then isn’t certain if he can actually sense the complex below, or if he is just so desperate to get there that he imagines it. Then he does exactly what Fett told him not to do and Shadow-Walks blind into the corridor that should lead to his masters cell.

It’s the most disorienting transition he’s ever experienced, the moon seeming both to repel him and attempt to drag him into its very core. Obi-Wan ends up in a dark pocket of space _somewhere_ near where he intended to go, curled up in aching confusion and fear.

 _I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot_.

All darkness was the same darkness, but worlds were entities unto themselves, and he has the chilling impression that had Concordia had any greater a presence in the Force, his trespass would not have been so easily allowed.

Obi-Wan breathes in deep, and his head swims. He breathes in deep and breathes in deep, but the air down here is a little thin. Shaking himself, he meditates for a few minutes, easing his body into an artificial state of calm to conserve its own resources. Then he gets up and follows that bright sense of his master, lightsaber in hand.

When he finds the sealed, reinforced hatch, he realizes he probably should have asked Pre what the code for the door was. His communicator certainly wouldn’t work from down here.

Sighing, Obi-Wan takes his lightsaber to it, and is forced to grudgingly admit that sometimes, an overpowered blade is good for something – with an ordinary blade, he’s sure it would have taken at least half an hour to make his way through the hatch, if not an hour. It was apparently Jedi resistant inside and out.

An alarm sounds when the seal breaks, but it peels uselessly in the darkness. There’s no one but them to hear it.

He feels his master stir though, so he thinks the sound may have gotten through the trance. It was certainly shrill enough. That, or he sensed Obi-Wan’s presence. He finds the latter idea more pleasing.

The second hatch shocks him when he touches it, and Obi-Wan swears before digging his lightsaber in with a bit of a vengeance, sparks crackling around the deep jade green blade, which seemed bright as a summers glade in this pitched darkness.

He tips the hunk of metal out with the Force, and the power in his master’s cell gutters, flickering intermittently. He hears his master gasp, bolting upright on a metal slab on the far side of the surprisingly large cell.

“Padawan?” He calls, an unsettling amount of uncertainty in his voice. Obi-Wan steps through the new hole in the wall.

“It’s me.” Obi-Wan calls softly.

His master stares at him though, like he’s not sure, and then he closes his eyes, squeezing them shut. Obi-Wan’s stomach drops.

 _Oh, master_.

Obi-Wan walks over to him, and when he hesitantly reaches out to lay a hand on his master’s shoulder, the man flinches. Then his hand lurches up with startling swiftness and latches hard around Obi-Wan’s wrist. His master lets out a stuttered gasp and shudders, opening his eyes.

“Oh, thank the Force.” He breathes.

Obi-Wan swallows, and offers a rueful smile. “Not the first time you’ve seen me, I take it?” He asks, voice more tremulous than he’d like.

His master huffs, bending forward until his brow rested against Obi-Wan’s arm. “Abject isolation does not suit me, I fear.” He sighs. “You think I’d be used to it by now.” He adds in a displeased mutter.

“I’m not going to touch that, at the moment.” Obi-Wan mutters in turn, earning a look. “I am going to get you out of here.”

“I would appreciate that very much.” His master nods, and Obi-Wan helps him draw to his feet. In the green light of his saber and the flickering flashes from the edges of the ceiling and floor, he can tell his master’s face is discolored, that his lips are chapped, but other than that he doesn’t seem _too_ worse for wear.

His master sucks in a sudden breath, and Obi-Wan glances back to his face to find an affronted look in his masters eyes.

“Master Ben?”

“You’ve _outgrown_ me!” The man mutters, as if personally aggrieved by this.

Obi-Wan can’t help but laugh.

It takes longer this time, to ready himself to Shadow-Walk his master back to the surface, doubt curling in his gut after the trip down. There was always a bit more resistance when he brought another person along, and he wrestles with his fear of getting them both lost somewhere in the stone before his master reaches up and tugs on his padawan braid, drawing his attention.

“Trust yourself.” His master says sincerely. “I certainly trust you.”

His fear settles some, and, bolstered by that, by the mans presence and surety, Obi-Wan de-ignites his saber, and walkes them both into the shadows of the corridor.

Rather than the hinderance it was before, Concordia all but spits them back out, and they both stagger coming out under the wing of Fett’s fighter, in the early light of pre-dawn.

They both take in gasping deep breaths, though his master then coughs for the tang in the air, and looks around with a stunned gaze at the ravaged surface. “ _Kyr’stad_ did this?” He utters, appalled.

Obi-Wan shifts. “ _Fett_ did this.” He murmurs, and no sooner has he said the mans name than Fett is stalking around the corner of the ship, having been waiting for them – Obi-Wan winces, having hoped he’d be gone and back before he was noticed – and the next thing he knows Fett has him slammed up against the side of the ship, shaking his for good measure.

“What the fuck did I tell you not to do?” He snarls.

“We’re both fine!” Obi-Wan insists.

Fett slams him into the side of the ship again.

“What the fuck did I tell you not to do?” Jango repeats furiously.

“ _Vod_.” Master Ben chides, putting a hand on the _Mand’alor’s_ shoulder, and next thing _he_ knows, Fett’s got him wrapped up in a slightly suffocating and painful hug, because the man is in his _beskar’gam_ and no small amount of desperately glad to have him back alive.

Obi-Wan sets himself to rights and grins at Fett’s back, earning a slightly strained, but heart-warmed look from his master for it.

“Someone ought to beat some fucking sense into that boy. He doesn’t fucking _listen_.”

Obi-Wan winces and Master Ben huff a laugh. “He’s not actually _obligated_ to obey you, you know. He listens sometimes.”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes at his master’s smirk.

“He’s my fucking _hibir_ too, isn’t he? I am the _ka’ra_ damned _Mand’alor_ -“

“He means well.” Ben valiantly defends him.

“That’s worse.” Fett mutters, finally giving Ben room to breathe, pulling back and holding him by the shoulders. He realizes at about the same time Obi-Wan does that the jedi master is shaking. “You need a shower and a nap.” Fett mutters, dropping his hands and turning aside to walk with him.

Master Ben smiles, a little strained, and plucks ruefully at the slightly grimy blacks he was wearing, rank with stale sweat and human odor. “I couldn’t agree more.” He remarks. “Prison cell sonics only do so much.”

Fett snorts, and then pauses. He takes Master Ben’s saber from his belt and holds it out. Relief softens the jedi master’s bruised face, and he reaches out for it.

Obi-Wan can hear the snapping crackle it makes, the moment it touches his fingers, and his master swears darkly.

“Master?”

Master Ben shakes his head, glowering at the hilt clenched in his fist. “My adegan has _attitude_.” He hisses in displeasure. “It appears _overjoyed_ to be back in my hands.” His scowl mulls into a frown, however, and he looks it over with a pinched expression, prodding gently with the Force. “I’ll have to re-tune the crystals.” He sighs.

“Shower.” Obi-Wan reminds him, skirting past the _Mand’alor_ and stepping up to his other side. “Nap.” He adds, nudging.

“Yes, yes.” Master Ben mutters. “So glad we are all in agreement.”

Fett snorts, and Obi-Wan smiles.

~*~

Ben gets through the shower by simple rote. It’s when he’s gently ushered into his cabin by Obi-Wan and the door snicks shut that he realizes he might have a problem – just a momentary pause of unease before he moves to the bed, his body aching for rest in spite of a five day trance of inactivity, once he’d realized no one was coming back for him, that something significant had happened, and he could be – left there – for some time. 

After about five seconds of laying down, listening to his breathing curl up the walls, unease had redoubled into doubt. After ten seconds, doubt had curdled into fear. He closed his eyes, breathed in deep, tried to expel it, and after thirty seconds fear spiked into panic and Obi-Wan was rushing back in the room while Ben lay curled up and gasping.

“ – not alone, master. You’re not alone. I’m right here, I’m sorry, I didn’t think-“

Ben leans into his padawan, dropping his head against his shoulder, sinking as much of his senses as he dared into Obi-Wan's warmth and brightness, into his heartbeat and presence. “You weren’t the only one.” He breathes out. “Not your fault. I just – I just….” Ben swallows, and Obi-Wan grips his shoulders tight, briefly, before letting go and shedding his armor.

“Padawan –“

“It’s fine.” Obi-Wan cuts him off. “I didn’t really sleep last night anyways. We’ll just… try for a bit of sleep, and then meditate. Or the other way around?”

“Shouldn’t we be heading back to Mandalore?” Ben huffs, ashamed at his own reaction. He’s survived imprisonment before, survived isolation before, so why _now_ -

 _Because I survived it once. Abject isolation, the elimination of everything I have ever held dear_. He had survived it. He thinks he even could have even continued to survive it, perhaps even come to accept it, because what choice would he have had? It was done. It was over. But this…

 _I can’t do it again_.

 _I can’t_.

Not now having had it all _back_.

He’d go mad or die.

“There will be no chance for rest once we get back to Mandalore, Master. I asked the _Mand’alor_ to wait a few hours.”

“Obi-Wan.” Ben sighs, aggrieved, even surprisingly irritated in spite of the great consideration he’s being shown. “ We cannot put my paltry well-being above that of the entire-“

“I really think you need to talk to Jango before he makes any… big decisions." Obi-Wan blurts out, cutting him off. "He’s been…. You saw Concordia, Master.”

Ben blinks, staring at his padawan's worried face. He had, yes, and he can imagine... and that was hardly something that _Obi-Wan_ was in a position to deal with. “And I can’t talk to Jango until I’m… steadier.” Ben acknowledges, his irritation fading, though he is irritated at himself for being so irritated with his padawan.

“Well, I’d rather like you to be steadier simply for you too, but…” Obi-Wan sighs, frowning. “There is a lot to be done and dealt with. I’m sorry.”

Ben chuffs. “No rest for the weary, padawan mine.”

Obi-Wan snorts. “A little rest.” He counters, dropping onto the bunk next to Ben and gently shoving him over.

“Hm.” Ben hums, lying back and shifting when his padawan digs an elbow in accidentally. “A little rest.” He agrees, though he is apprehensive what his dreams might bring.


	64. Chapter 64

Jango would say Ben looks better after a shower and a four hour nap, but he rather thinks he’d be lying. In good lighting, the yellow-green bruises across his _vod’s_ face give him a jaundiced, sallow look, and the purple hollows of sleeplessness around his bloodshot eyes do nothing to lessen that effect. His hair, however, is clean, already slipping out from behind his ears and his beard has been neatly trimmed back down into proper order and neat length.

Jango hands him a bowl of plain broth which the _jetii_ accepts with pleased gratefulness. “Ready to get going, then?” Jango grunts.

Ben sips at the bowl, glancing at Jango over the rim. He’s borrowed a loose white tunic and black pants from his padawan, but there are no boots on his socked feet – Obi-Wan still had slightly smaller feet, and no spare pair besides. His own clothes – including is silks, which really pisses Jango off – had been lost when Kyr’stad took him. Along with his armor, which goes past pissing Jango off and riles into an unslaked fury low in his gut.

“I think you and I ought to discuss a few matters, first.” Ben remarks quietly.

Jango narrows his eyes, sensing admonishment ahead. “About?” He growls out. Ben twitches a brow at his tone and gestures towards the cockpit. Unhappy, Jango turns on heel and stalks towards it, his stride only hitching slightly when his wounded side twinges, Ben following with whisper-soft steps.

Jango throws himself into the pilot’s chair, gesturing for Ben to take the co-pilot side. The _jetii_ does, carefully balancing his bowl of broth.

“Tell me he didn’t complain to you about my making Kryze cry.” Jango mutters, crossing his arms, guessing Obi-Wan had put him up to this.

Ben pauses, looking surprised, and Jango grimaces at having outed himself. Perhaps he does feel a sense of shame about that, because the girl has gone toe to toe in screaming row with him before and the two of them could be unforgiving, but he’d dug at wounds he’d no right to in his anger, riled enough by stewing in his own rage and worry to have _wanted_ to punish her, to have wanted to hurt her. And, being the _shabuir_ he was, he’d succeeded.

The tears had still surprised him, and he had the sense after the fact to think they’d _mortified_ her.

If Adonai were still alive…

And that was the worst of it. Adonai wasn’t. Everything she stood for and everything she was doing was because her father was not alive, and Jango had all but spat it back in her face.

“You made Satine cry?” Ben repeats.

Jango glowers at him, and Ben glances away. “He didn’t, no.” Ben remarks, setting that aside for the moment, which doesn’t actually make Jango feel any more sanguine about this. Instead, Ben looks back and reaches over for his belt. “May I?” He inquires, fingers stopping shy of the darksaber.

Jango’s eyes darken, jaw tensing, but he nods, and Ben takes it, turning it over in exactly the same manner as Obi-Wan had done.

“I don’t regret a single _ka’ra_ damned thing I’ve done.” Jango declares levelly, anticipating rebuke.

Ben looks up at him, blue-grey eyes as gleaming as glass. “I know.” Ben says quietly, and then delivers the blow. “You would do exactly to Death Watch what the Jango Fett I once knew did to the Jedi Order. You’re still the same man. You just chose a different target.”

Something deep in his chest twists dark and sharp and burning, rejecting the accusation that wasn’t an accusation at all, but felt like one - “ _No_ , I’m _not_ -“ Not that nightmare, not that – that _demagolka_ , that _monster_ capable of -

“What you did at Concordia is hardly a fraction of what you are capable of.” Ben continues, holding him with that glass-bright, reflective stare. “Frankly, what you’ve done with this-“ he tilts the darksaber in his fingers – “ is mild compared to-“

“Alright, stop!” Jango demands. “Enough. _Fuck_.” Jango glowers at him – past him, actually, because he breaks that stare and can’t bear to look at it. He snatches the dakrsaber back and resists the urge to deck his best friend, because hurting him won’t make what he’s said any less – any less _true_.

“I didn’t kill any _ade_. I didn’t hunt down any families-“ Jango throws himself out of his seat, pacing into the space behind.

“Yet.” Ben replies blandly.

Jang whirls on him, enraged, and chokes on fury, on – on a sense of despair, that even denying it, he knows Ben is right. Jango still doesn’t feel _sorry_. He doesn’t feel _guilty_. What he did he felt was justified. _Righteous_. He was the survivor of Galidraan, he was the last of the old _Haat Mando’ade_ , he was the fucking _Mand’alor_ , and they were – Traitors. Murderers. _Dar’Manda_ who stained the honor of Mandalore, who shed its own blood and not just the blood of _verde_ , but of medics, civilians, _children_. He _had every right_ -

“Tell me they didn’t _deserve_ what I’d do to them.” Jango snarls out.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that some of them did. That some of them still do deserve what you’d do to them. That’s not my approval – by the by.” Ben remarks. “I am still a _jetii_ , but my moral values have no authority over you, over your culture.”

Jango grimaces, acknowledging his friends rather pointed reminder, the subtle cut that Ben - and Obi-Wan after him - _did_ judge him for his actions, that they followed a code foreign to his own, and by their standard he was likely most often found wanting. It irked him most days, but in this matter – it settled cold inside him, heavy and tiring.

“But there have to be limits, and you…” Ben sighs, and gestures to him. Jango look away, glaring balefully at the wall, and nods tightly. He has very, very few.

_Child Soldiers._

_Slaves._

_Genocide, down to the very last youngling_ -

“It is not the same.” Jango insists, stomach churning bile. “ _Kyr’stad_ and your people-“

“ _Kyr’stad_ are criminals, I’ll give you that.” Ben nods. “But that isn’t the point, Jango. That isn’t the point at all. You razed half a planet to ash and ruin in your pursuit of them. Concordia may never recover. There are clans, right now, living in wait with the expectation that they may be slaughtered to a man on the weight of your judgement. To a man, to the very last _child_. Not all even on their own crimes, but on the simple affiliation to them.”

It was Mandalorian history, what the end of a blood feud might look like. It would shock none of his own people, if that was exactly what he did.

“Guilt is not absolute. Punishment shouldn’t be either.” Ben entreats. “But that is up to you.”

“Then what is the point of this lecture?” Jango turns on him. “Clearly, you want to tell me how to handle this-“ And maybe he should, Jango thinks. He trusted his _vod_ completely. Ben would do right by their people, he doesn’t doubt that, even if it left Jango unsatisfied-

“No.” Ben cuts him off, tone firming. “It is not my place. I just want you to realize what you are doing, before you become a man you didn’t want to be. Or has that changed?”

 _This is about me_. The realization shouldn’t strike him so hard, but it does, as he stares at Ben. This is about _me_. Not the _Mand’alor_ , not Mandalore, not _Kyr’stad_. Not morality or judgement.

Just himself.

The fate of an entire goddamned sector at stake, the future of Mandalore, the lives of millions, and Ben winnowed it all down to _him_ , to what Jango Fett felt and wanted for himself.

“I fucking hate you.” Jango gasps, and then laughs, and then chokes, covering his face with a hand.

Ben sips his fucking broth, and hums a mild disagreement.

Jango won’t lie to himself. Ben is absolutely right about him. Jango is an honorable man, but not a moral one.

“How do I draw the lines?” Jango finally sighs, once his chest has stopped hitching, the touch of hysteria fading. He feels wrung out, has felt.

Ben lifts a brow. “I do believe Satine Kryze can help you better with that.” He points out.

Jango grimaces. “She and I aren’t exactly speaking well at the moment.”

Ben’s other brow joins the first. Jango scowls. “I’m not apologizing.”

Ben’s reproving look relaxes, and he shrugs, as if that was that.

Except it wasn’t.

Couldn’t be.

Because he _did_ need to be on speaking terms with Duchess Satine Kryze.

 _Fuck me_.

He’ll have to make it up to her. Somehow.

He was _not_ apologizing.

Jango moves back to the pilots seat and stares out the viewport, at the haze-laden horizon of Concordia.

His thoughts drift, fingers straying to the darksaber on his belt. “Tor Vizla…” He remarks, remembering.

Ben lowers his bowl, looking over curiously.

Jango sighs roughly. “He spoke of a promised war.” Jango says simply, figuring it easiest to just get it out there. “The greatest war the galaxy would ever see. He spoke as if – as if someone showed him what would be.”

A chill enters the room, one Jango doesn’t think is entirely imagined, by the dread that enters Ben’s expression, the tightness around his eyes and mouth, the subtle paling of his color.

Ben draws in a long, slow breath, and lets out a shuddering sigh. “I see.” He says quietly, gaze turning far away.

“Ben.”

The red-haired _jetii_ shakes his head, determinedly not looking at him.

 _Everything I do_ , Jango remembers, remembers the anger, the agony in his _vod’s_ voice, _and sometimes it just seems so fucking futile_.

Jango scrubs a hand over his face and hair, and slouches in misery, staring out the viewport. Ben eventually sets his bowl on the console and buries his face in his hands, bowed over himself.

Jango kicks himself and moves, dropping down on the arm of the co-pilots chair, placing a hand over Ben's shoulder; grounding him, reminding him he wasn't alone.

Ben shudders, and then moves one hand over to grip Jango’s wrist in return, a silent gratitude.

It doesn’t seem like enough. 


	65. Chapter 65

Bruck starts as a light clicks over the ray-shielded door, warning him to step back and stand-by. He settles himself on the thin bunk, wondering if he’s to have another interrogation. He’s used to them by now, after months in detention, but no amount of meditation and wracking his brains has dragged up anything else to give them in weeks. No new details, no sudden recollections of things that might have seemed innocuous at first… He’d told them everything Xanatos had told him and done, everything he’d taught Bruck, everything _Bruck_ had done. Everything down to even what Bruck had thought and felt – sometimes in interrogation, sometimes to the mind healer he’d been assigned.

His world had narrowed to this little cell, the hallway to the interrogation room, the Courts Offices, and his own guilty thoughts.

Bruck plays with the Force Inhibitor cuff on his wrist, and the door opens. The security guard motions to him impatiently and Bruck hops to his feet, socks thin against the durasteel plating beneath. He slips on the soft soled slippers he’d been issued and follows obediently as he’s taken back to the interrogation room. His stomach tightens, not in anxiety, but in guilt – he _has_ nothing more to give them. The continued questioning just makes him feel…. inadequate, like he _should_ have more to give them, like they _need_ him to have more to give them.

His thoughts spin around and around miserably, and it takes him till he’s seated to realize it isn’t the detectives or the lawyers or the security officers he’s used to waiting there across the table for him.

It’s a Temple Guard.

It takes him another couple blinks to recognize the hover-chair for what it is, to recognize that blonde hair and handsome face. She looks better now, than when he’d seen her in the plaza. She’s looks thinner, smaller somehow, but the lack of bruises and bandages helps immensely, as does the new ports on her stumps of legs, the first step in getting mechanical replacements. There were a lot of injuries just as severe, and the Order was limited on funds – replacements would take time. Well, the good ones would, at least. Static prosthetics were what most made do with in the meantime. Or hover-chairs.

Bruck swallows tightly and looks down.

“Do you know who I am?” She inquires. Bruck glances up, t the rank detailed on her uniform.

“A Temple Guard Captain.” He replies, a tad sullen with his stomach lurching against the back of his throat. He definitely feels anxious now.

“Captain Jude Rozess.” She clarifies for him. “I suppose it’s plain I don’t need to ask who you are.”

Bruck shrugs.

“Look me in the eye when I’m addressing you.” The woman remarks mildly, and Bruck looks up, hunching. She offers a wry smile. “Thank you, that’s better.”

Bruck stares at her, and she takes a moment to study him.

“Judicial has finally conceded to not have you tried in the public courts. You will have to thank Knight Ichi-Tan Micoda for his tenacity in insisting that you yet remained a ward of the Order and therefor your crimes fell upon our own unique jurisdiction. Your fate is in the hands of the Jedi.” 

Bruck doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know why they did that for him. He nods, slowly, acknowledging what she’s said.

She waits until he screws up the courage to ask; “What will the Order do with me?”

She holds his gaze, her own fir but otherwise unreadable. He wonders if she hates him, for her injuries, and then gets angry at himself, because unlike him, she’s truly a Jedi, and a Jedi doesn’t hate. But she can probably still be angry with him.

“The Reconciliation Council has a few options. They favor sending you to the Dawn Temple, for a time, to be put in the care of the Soul Healers. After which, you would likely be assigned to an AgriCorps posting on some out of the way, far off moon and spend the rest of your days doing some good in the galaxy without ever again being in a position to do such measure of harm.”

That’s… a gentler punishment than he expected. He knows the Jedi have a prison facility for those who commit irrecoverable crimes. He would not have been surprised to end up there. Even if he hadn’t known what Xanatos intended… people had died. A _lot_ of people. Younglings too.

His eyes burn and blur, and Bruck sucks in a breath through his nose, looking away to hide the tears, trying to blink them back.

He hadn’t wanted any of this to happen – he’d just wanted….

It doesn’t matter now, does it? This _is_ what happened, and he was to blame.

“Okay.” He mutters, nodding.

Captain Rozess snorts softly.

“Another option, Disciple Chun, is _me_.” She remarks.

Bruck frowns at the table, still trying to get control of himself, and takes a moment before looking up, confused. “You?” He questions uncertainly.

She nods, her expression giving nothing away. “The Temple Guard are an order unto ourselves. If I take you in – you will never be a Jedi Knight. That is not what I am offering you. You would give up your identity, your status, all selfish desires and personal goals and commit _completely_ to the service. Once your training is complete, you would spend the rest of your life protecting the Temples to which you were sworn. But Disciple Chun, let me be clear – if this is what you choose, if you betray _us_ , there will be no more chances.”

“I wouldn’t.” Bruck swears, blurting it out as something batters around inside his chest like a trapped bird. He hunches back, realizing he’d jolted forward, and tries to calm himself, feeling welling up inside. The first option offered rehabilitation. The second – the second offered _redemption_.

His eyes burn again, and he bites he tongue. He wants that. He wants it _so_ much.

His thoughts swirl, repeating everything she has said, and his brow furrows as uncertainty and confusion turn to a murk inside his mind. “I want to prove myself. I want to make it right – but – but isn’t that selfish? If - if I can’t have personal goals and desires - I don’t – “

Fear builds in his chest, more familiar than not of late, and Bruck shakes his head. It would be the worst sort of joke, to fail before he even got the chance to try.

“Do you want to make it right to make yourself feel better? To validate yourself and prove in your own mind you aren’t a bad person? Or do you want to repay them however you can for the harm you’ve wrought, because you’ve harmed them, and you want to see _them_ made whole?”

Bruck struggles, thoughts colliding.

“I don’t – I’m not sure.” He whispers guiltily.

She hums, leaning forward on her elbows. “We can work on that.” She promises.

~*~

“Diligent, you have been Disciple Swan.” Yoda praises the young woman as Mace turns the corridor, not entirely used to the new arrangements in the Temple. He still got turned around when trying to find relocated offices. “Proud, we are. Crucial, your efforts have been.”

“Thank you, Master Yoda.” The black-haired disciple dips her head, looking far less weary this time than the last Mace had seen her, when the grief for her master had been fresh.

Mace slows his pace, coming up to them. “Alderaan is ready for us, then?” He inquires, relief coloring his voice. The Council had been mulling it over for some time, but Bultar Swan’s reports of both the suitability of the Academy had been detailed and promising. Many Jedi were hesitant to separate the Creche from the bulk of the Order, but Queen Breha had been adamant that the academy had extensive grounds, and could be expanded upon with no argument from her government, and that she _highly encouraged_ members of the Order to enjoy to peace of Alderaan’s countryside whenever they wished to visit.

Mace had felt, in these negotiations, as if the young monarch was making a staunch effort to adopt his people, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He knows who he blames, though.

Queen Organa’s only forward request had been that the Jedi allow visitors once they were established on Alderaan, negotiating that if they would be so willing to do so, Alderaan’s Royal Security would of course then personally assist with the Temple’s security.

There had been steel in the woman’s eyes, a glaciers formidability in her tone, and her husband had graciously interceded at that point, gently assuring them that Alderaan security would of course remain an external entity, so as to ensure the sanctity of the Jedi’s sovereignty was not encroached upon.

Between the two of them and their aggressive good-will, Mace had felt quite courteously trapped. Adi – Master Gallia – had looked as if she felt she ought to call them on something, but couldn’t exactly figure out what, exactly, she’d accuse them of.

Again, Mace knows who he blames for this.

He’s just also… grateful.

Disciple Swan herself, having had her assignment extended to include readying the future temple for occupation and estimating how to begin transferring persons and resources and on what time-table it could feasibly be done, appears to have flourished under Alderaan’s patronage. Her presence is much clearer in the Force, resettled, and her robe is adorned with small patches of embroidered flowers, looking done by a learners hand – a child’s, or several children’s, most likely. Mace looks at her and feels the Force give a rather insistent nudge.

Really, as if his colleagues beleaguering him was not enough.

“Ready for the first few hands on deck, yes.” Disciple Swan replies, bowing politely in greeting. “Perhaps one or two of the older creche-clans as well, if they’re willing to help finish preparations for the rest.”

“A sound idea, that is.” Yoda nods, and then glances between Mace and Disciple Swan, ears perking up. “Hm, yes. Take young Bultar to the Creche Masters, you should.” He prods Mace, who knows exactly what he is up to and gives him a flat look for it. “No need, is there, to waste time?” The little green troll adds, narrowing his eyes right back at Mace.

“Of course.” Mace murmurs, gesturing for the disciple to join him.

“Thank you, Masters.” She bows. Yoda grumbles in pleasure and toddles off, completely ignoring the glare Mace shoots at the back of his head before turning politely to Disciple Swan.

“What are your biggest reservation, about the academy?” He inquires, after an easy few minutes of comfortable silence. He has all the reports, of course, but conversation revealed more.

“The weather.” She replies simply.

Mace frowns, and she offers a hint of amusement. “Alderaan has _seasons_ , Master Windu. Summer heat. Winter snow. It will be…. different.”

Mace considers it. Coruscant was temperately climate controlled, as was the Temple itself. Yes, it would certainly be different.

“Something to look forward to, perhaps.” He replies, cautiously optimistic. They fall back in to quiet.

Eventually he gives in the ever pressing thought in his head and pauses. She only falters for half a second before turning back to look at him inquiringly.

“Disciple Swan.” Mace starts. “You have faced a great many challenges in your path, and overcome them with fortitude and grace. These are… uncertain times, for the Jedi, and I believe we could do with one less uncertainty. I foresee you will be a great Jedi Knight, a credit to all Master Giett has taught you and all you have taught yourself.” He softens. “If you would consider it, I would ask that you allow me the honor of completing your training, and claiming you as my Padawan Learner.”

She looks back at him, expression utterly serene, dark eyes unreadable. She glances aside, lips pursing, and Mace waits.

“Master Windu….” She pauses looking back and clasping her hands in a refined gesture. “Had you dallied a single more day, Master Yoda would have been chasing you with his stick.” She remarks, utterly the Padawan of Micah Giett, and bows deeply. “The honor would be mine.”

Mace huffs. She is not, of course, wrong.

“Padawan Swan.” He dips his head. “Thank you.”

~*~

“ – _tainly going to require some adjustments in the long run._ ” Shaak Ti remarks, frowning in consideration.

“We will adapt.” Shmi replies. “We will survive.”

She has been asked, as a member of the Reassignment Council to make the move to Alderaan. Master B’una had been lost in the attack, and the Creche was still reeling. As a result, Shmi had taken on much more of the duties inherent in that Council’s function. It proved convenient, being paperwork, as something both to keep her busy and give her purpose while Temple-bound with an infant.

Shmi is honored by the offer, by the trust and responsibility she has been given. Anakin, however, had been quite distressed at the idea of changing Temples – rather, at the idea of living in a separate Temple from Obi-Wan and Ben, whom he seemed convinced would forget him, as they’d already been apart for the best of half a year.

Personally, Shmi thought some separation might do them good – in a few short years, she has no doubt Obi-Wan will be all but raising Anakin as his master - if not Ji-Kest as well, as inseparable as the pair could be. A little breathing room before-hand might benefit the young man greatly. She loved her sons, but they could be…. overwhelming. Anakin especially, as he grew in leaps and bounds, flourishing in his classes and his early training. It was readily becoming apparent that he was outpacing his peers, in skill and talent if not always in maturity.

She’d given Anakin a quiet lecture on having trust and faith in ones friends, that he must think poorly of Ben and Obi-Wan indeed if he believed they were so meager companions as to easily abandon him, and that had quieted one distress with another.

“I don’t think so, mom, I don’t!” He’d insisted.

“Then _behave_ as if you don’t, Ani.” She’d replied firmly.

He’d been subdued all the rest of the day, but she thinks he may have actually taken the lesson in, which would be a relief. No doubt he would require reminders, as all children did, but it was a good start.

“ _Will I be seeing you soon, then_?” Shaak inquires over the holo. “ _Or will the transfer preclude that_?”

Ah, yes. Shmi had volunteered to make the next rotation to Dathomir with supplies, and to pick up one jedi who had proved eager enough but hazardously untalented in magics.

“You will be seeing me.” Shmi assures, smiling. The infrequent calls were more than generous, but Shmi did miss Shaak Ti fiercely. “It just so happened to prove convenient that I could also take on another assignment in making the same journey, and I could not pass it up.”

“ _Oh? What assignment_?”

“Dathomir happens to be on the way to Mandalore. I’m to drop off representatives of the AgriCorps and MediCorps for negotiations with the new regime, and pick up a few wayward padawans too.”

Ben and Obi-Wan were obligated by their respective assignments to stay a bit longer in Mandalore, but Master Drallig was rather impatient to have his padawan home. He fretted, Shmi thinks.

Shaak Ti grins brightly, flashing her sharper teeth. “ _How fortuitous. Tell Ben and Obi-Wan hello for me_.”

“I will.” Shmi promises and then Shaak Ti inquires after Omi. Shmi is happy to fill her in on the details. At rounding eight months, Omi has figured out how to scoot herself around, much to her brothers’ delight. Understanding her connection to the Force has also given Shmi a much clearer understanding of what Omi wants and needs, at times; what she thought had merely been good motherly instincts when Anakin had been an infant, but were actually mild emotional projections and her own sensitivity.

She in turn asks after Shaak Ti’s progress, and the exchange students whom Shaak Ti had been placed in charge of while they learned magic from the Nightsisters. The togruta master can’t ever tell her much – most of them being Shadows – but the anecdotes she _can_ share are always amusing – or else alarming.


	66. Chapter 66

Obi-Wan could never in his life have imagined a city so recently ravaged and wounded could so quickly transform into something far more resembling of a festival. But doors had been wedged open, households and shops spilling out into the street to handle an influx of displaced persons, colorful tarps and canvas had been stretched over side-streets, turning them into sheltered tunnels where those who could not be housed – or decided not to be – would take refuge. Ships were brought in and parked haphazardly, likewise opened up as either housing or goods transport, both in the open streets and all around the edges of Keldabe. Everyone was working, it seemed, either moving rubble or rebuidling or making registries of the displaced or handling supplies and goods. Public venders had popped up everywhere, as had artists and musicians, smiths and scavengers – there had been a quick rash of incidents of price-gouging and predatory lending that Satine had gotten wind of and Bo-Katan had shut down hard.

There was nothing stifled and still about Keldabe now.

There were still some small skirmishes with pcokets of Death Watch, on Mandalore as well as throughout the sector, but they were being decisively handled. It was clear by now that Fett and Kryze had _won_ , and that Mandalore, and the _Mando’ade_ , were theirs by right.

Satine liked to go out and about, be seen and talk to her people when she wasn’t otherwise caught in crowded, thick debates with various displaced and former officials, as well as clan leaders and corporate entities all trying to grab their spot at the table of the new regime.

That Satine would make favors known to none was making them _all_ all the more aggressive and sour about it, but Obi-Wan knew her reasoning. There were many yet who had undermined Mandalore’s previous government who had yet to be rooted out and who would be tried and found guilty, and some who may not be found guilty in court, but will be found guilty by her judgement nonetheless. There is much yet of the information they have gathered, that Duke Kryze before them had gathered, and his network of spies, that had to be sorted through and made sense of. She had to be on her guard.

Furthermore, there was yet Fett to deal with, and Satine would drag him into the accountability of governance willing or not. To be fair, Fett was currently handling the entirety of the military actions, resources, gains and damages all across the sector. He was hardly at loose ends, and Master Ben right beside him, scowling every time they traded data-pads.

Obi-Wan goes in search of his master now, back in the shelter of the complex currently serving as a sort of headquarters. Satine was engrossed in conversation with some of her father’s agents who had been eager to report to her now that she was present, and Orikhid was with her, apparently quite friendly with a few of them.

Master Ben seems to be doing a little better, meditating with Obi-Wan for a little while every morning. He isn’t quite up to being alone in closed rooms, but Obi-Wan imagines that that is something his healer will have to deal with. For now, either Obi-Wan or Fett keep him company, and Obi-Wan will admit to feeling a little relieved that Fett doesn’t mind sharing a bunk with his master at times, which gives Obi-Wan leave to spend his evenings and occasionally his nights with Satine.

He may, perhaps, have misjudged a little how much Fett didn’t mind spending the night with his master, however, because he tried to drop in on them late last night, a day trip to Sundari with Satine to actually see the destruction having taken longer than expected, only to be aggressively blocked by Bo-Katan, who’d caught him just outside Fett’s ship, hadn’t looked him in the eye, and very much insisted he did not want to disturb them right now.

Once he’d finally acquiesced, he’s pretty sure she’d muttered; “ _Kebise buir linibar ade nuhaatyc._ ”

 _There are things parents do that their children **should not see**_.

Her presence had been rife with embarrassment and regret. Obi-Wan had had the good grace and self-preservation not to laugh at her.

“ _Vor entye_.” He’d replied instead, pulling down his smirk as he bowed. He _knows_ she’d hit him if she saw it. _Thank you_.

Instead, he’s saving his smirk for his master.

He forgets about it for a moment, however, once he actually finds the man, because it appears Fett has finally been successful in getting him back in silks, if not yet in armor. Obi-Wan knows he’d been working on it, and to be fair, even Obi-Wan thought it was a bit odd to see his master out of his usual layered tunics and colors as well, the borrowed clothes having given him the look of a displaced spacer. Although, Fett’s actual spacers jacket _had_ suited him.

Obi-Wan completely understands the rumors he’s been catching whispers of now. Apparently there are bets. Apparently, those bets are getting quite high.

He can tell his master was given very little input on the new silks. That is not, in Obi-Wan’s opinion, a bad thing.

They got the jedi style right, they even got right is master’s preference for layers. The cut is just a bit different, the fit more flattering to his master’s frame. He sees the collar and sleeve hems of a creamy-white undershirt, over which is a looser tunic of a deep, velvet-like blue-violet, shot through with an equally jewel-like dark teal, the glimpses of which shimmered like the glance of meteorite trails across the nights sky. His tabard is a comparatively gentle shade of copper, over which is a maroon obi for his belt.

Obi-Wan has to bite the inside of his cheek, even under his helmet. The colors are good, a perfect blend of compliment and contrast to make the eye appreciative.

He can almost picture how _exasperated_ Master Ben must have been, but too humble to actually _refuse_ such a gift. Obi-Wan intends to rifle through his masters closet as soon as they get home and replace a few lesser worn items with the new colors.

He can’t wait to see the new armor, but as busy as everyone was, he wasn’t surprised it was taking some time.

“ _Baji’buir_ , you look _dashing_.” Obi-Wan beams, approaching his master and skipping a bow in favor of an embrace. His master embraces him and tugs his padawan braid out under the lip of his helmet, pulling on it.

“Thank you.” He replies gamely. “You could have at least attempted to say so less smugly.”

Obi-Wan grins, and tugs off his bucket. “I had nothing to do with it.” He chirps, raking his fingers through his overgrown hair. For some reason, Satine, her sister, and half their companions had been insistent upon Obi-Wan keeping his bucket on, and he can’t fathom why. They’re not in any more danger than usual. Less, actually. “Though I bet that – “ He gets a dangerous, warning look from his master that makes him very quickly change what he was about to say, “ – that there are _some people_ who quite appreciate whomever did.” He smirks.

He knows, objectively, that his master is an attractive man. He is, obviously, quite handsome. But Obi-Wan was being raised by the man. It wasn’t something he ever particularly took note of. Save when it became excellent fodder for teasing.

Even now, he can sense quite a few stares focused in their direction, and quite a few accompanying flashes of heat and attraction through the hustle and bustle around them. He skims the passers-by with a glance and then raises a brow at his master, as if to say ‘see?’, smirking all the while.

Master Ben shakes his head. “Put your bucket back on.” He mutters.

“Why does everyone keep telling me that?” Obi-Wan grumbles. He likes his armor, but he rather liked the sunshine and breeze on his face too.

Master Ben smirks. “I’m not the only one they’re looking at, _ni verd’ibir_.” _Padawan mine._

Obi-Wan glances at the passers-by again and flushes. “Oh.” He mutters, putting his bucket back on. Master Ben laughs, which – Obi-Wan supposes _is_ fair.

Still, heat crawls up his neck and burns his ears, and Obi-Wan clears his throat.

“You don’t actually have to hide, you know.” His master remarks laughingly, steering him around. “It was a joke.”

“I’m fine.” Obi-Wan replies.

“Obi-Wan.” His master teases, and Obi-Wan knows he won’t hear the end of it if he doesn’t comply, so he does pull his helmet back off, narrow-eyed and peevish as he falls into step with the older jedi. And just when he thought he had the upper hand, too.

He sighs.

“Has Fett _really_ agreed to host AgriCorps and MediCorps postings?” Obi-Wan inquires, blatantly changing the subject. He knows Satine was fully supportive of such endeavors, as progress towards a less hostile image of Mandalore, and as something the Mandalore Sector could sorely use. He knows an invitation was made by her hand, and he knows she sent it to Fett, in one of the many impersonal missives that seemed to go exactly one way between them, but whether he actually had agreed to it, Obi-Wan was less sure.

“ Officially, Fett considers the blood feud between himself and the Jedi Order settled by the arrangement that was made with the Reconciliation Council regarding my services here. On behalf of Mandalore, whose feud with the Jedi is less easily settled, he is ‘provisionally allowing representatives of the aforementioned parties to make their case in a probational trial of effort’.”

Obi-Wan parses through that for a moment. “So… yes, but in such a way that the _mando’ade_ will just happen to have to get used to their presence before anyone has to admit that it was a done deal from the start?”

“Very good.” Ben praises his judgement.

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. “Why does it have to be so sideways? He’s the _Mand’alor_ , he could tell everyone to just deal with it. Our people can do good work here.”

“It was Duchess Kryze’s suggestion that he _not_ tell their own people to ‘just deal with it’, actually. Things are just settling down, but coaxing actual cooperation from the more radical groups is going to take a bit of tact and subtlety yet.”

Obi-Wan sighs, nodding his head. “I suppose I understand that. Has Fett decided how he wants to handle rebuilding the government?”

Master Ben’s mouth twists peculiarly. “It may be years yet before Mandalore has a structured government of any ilk we of the republic are accustomed to, but in the meantime Fett intends to re-instate some of the Old Tradition. Which will either be the most brilliant keystroke of this victory, or the start of the next civil war.”

Obi-Wan balks. “ _Which_ old tradition?” 

“He’s going to call a _Joruu’Manda_.” Master Ben remarks. “A summit of every Mandalorian Tribe, House, and Clan. Well, the leaders and speakers for, at least. He intends to have them swear the _Resol’nare_ before him, and to have them elect their _Jorad’alor_. For now, the great Houses and Clans will have to return to the duties of old, each taking responsibility for different functions of government. It’ll be… messy, I’m certain, but it will keep the system running until a unified government can be rebuilt.”

“Messy may be an understatement.” Obi-Wan mutters, thinking it over. “But… perhaps it’s for the best. _Cin Vhetin_ – Mandalore can start new again. Although…” He frowns. “Some of them may not want to give up those newfound seats of power they suddenly inherit, when it comes time for the government to be turned back over to an electorate.”

“Hm. Yes, I suppose.” Ben nods. “And in any other system or situation I imagine this _would_ be a recipe for disaster. Your concerns and considerations in that regard are spot on, _verd’ibir_.”

Obi-Wan glances over at that, pleased and curious. “ _Except_ ….” He prompts.

“ _Except_ \- in this particular case - those who do not wish to cede the power they were entrusted with will have to answer to the _Mand’alor_ for that, and the _Mand’alor_ will not be forgiving.”

Well, when it was put like that… the threat of Jango Fett _was_ a fairly effective deterrent, even before the mantle of _Mand’alor_ rested irrevocably upon him.

“There _is_ that.” Obi-Wan concedes.


	67. Chapter 67

Jango has just decided to blatantly ignore having seen Ronin Murr with his tiny nautolaun charge sitting aplumb on his shoulders, teal skin a vibrant contrast to the dappled bronze she was now clad in when he catches a flash of silver-blonde and focuses on it.

He had chosen his location for the summit very deliberately – out in the wastes, to take place before Duke Adonai Kryze’s lonely, humble tomb. To his surprise, grass had been growing around the edges of the pyramid of stone, sickly pale, but making an attempt at survival. Ben had explained, a tad hesitantly, that it was likely an effect of having used to Force to build the tomb, of having imbued the grave with it, intentionally or not.

Jango had been troubled by that, but not angry.

Ships have been arriving all more, landing to form a wide oval perimeter, the field between growing more and more crowded, disparate groups churning about, not quite mingling, tensions thick and uncertain.

He catches a flash of silver-blonde, sees white-lilac, and then sees _red_. He storms over to his _Jorad’alor_ -elect, infuriated with stress. “Where is your _armor_!” He demands, barely stopping himself from reaching out and shaking the girl.

A black bodysuit clings to her skin, modified to leave her neck and right arm bare. Over that is a fine silk dress, lilac layered over white, again draped over her left shoulder, but not the right. Teal jewelry adorns her ears and neck, and her hair is trimmed to her jaw, an elegent hairpiece trapping a few strands back from her face, a diadem of Mandalorian lilies of the palest gold glass. Her vambraces are her only concession to _beskar’gam_.

She looks back at him with cold steel in her silver-blue gaze, unrepentant, uncowed, and unforgiving. “This is a summit for peace.” She declares sharply, looking ready to give his own temper right back to him. “As _the_ proponent for peace, I am not walking into it dressed for war!” Her tone is almost accusatory, and Jango is readily aware that things are still not levelled between them, not by a long shot.

He snarls, ready to tear her a new one for the lack of simple _pragmaticism_ she displays, seeming incapable of understanding that she _is not safe_ -

His gaze drops from her eyes to the bared skin of her neck and shoulder, her pale, lithely muscled arm, looking all too vulnerable. The scars stand out with glaring, vivid ugliness.

She knows _exactly_ what she is doing.

Jango bites down on his anger and pulls it back, glaring at her, but a thought starting to form in the back of his mind, about intentions and symbolic gestures. Maybe…

He holds onto it, scowling with peeved thoughtfulness, and nods. Her narrowed gaze falters, slightly caught off guard at the apparent concession, and then hardens again, wondering what he’s up to. Jango lets her wonder, and bids a curt departure.

He passes a small cluster of what appears to be Krownest Heirs, by their age and armor, the one for Clan Wren raking him with a piercing hawk-like gaze before saluting, but prompting her peers to salute as well, pinning an equally hard look on the one who does so with a bit too much sulkiness.

Jango gives them all a level look in turn, but he only nods to the one, wondering exactly what that was about, before moving on. He skims the crowd for Bo-Katan’s flash of copper hair – the summit was a no-bucket affair, so everyone knew without doubt who was doing to talking, who was making the vows – and catches her standing stalwart near her own ship, a bristling Pre Vizla beside her, under her charge. Bo-Katan looked about ready to murder him any time he looked at her too long, but the fact that he hadn’t been put back in cuffs said he was behaving himself and she was absolutely exercising her limited patience to its fullest extent, at least. Right now, Pre’s good behavior and apparent control of the remains of his Clan proper was the only thing keeping a unilateral execution order at bay. He knew it, and so did the rest of Clan Vizla.

Their House _would_ be broken, those loyalist Clans brought down, and likely most of them in the upper echelon of _Kyr’stad_ _would_ die, but Jango could be persuaded – that is, his _Jorad’alor_ could adamantly insist, and he might be inclined to heed them – that he not erase them completely.

That Jango cared more about her good opinion than their lives – more about her good opinion than his absolute vengeance…

Ben had called it workable progress in the right direction. Jango had thrown a boot at him for it. That he also held on to it as something he _could_ hold on to – that was between him and the _ka’ra_.

Jango’s gaze slides past his daughter and over to Adonai’s grave. He shifts his balance, and glances up at the sky, too bright to see stars.

 _You’d be proud of them, vod_.

“ – really function without a government.”

Keto.

Jango has to glance around for the girl, short as she was, and spies her black hair and Mavi Var’de’s strawberry blond head clustered together, a small group of similarly aged ade with them, apparently trying to explain something to a very skeptical padawan.

Two teenlings pipe up trying to explain at once-

“ -ould take a less fixed view on ‘government’, not just a dumb republic model-“

“ – clan system was designed to function without an over-arching authority, especially in times of turmoil -”

“Could I?” Var’de cuts them off, glowering at the boisterous response. The two speakers shrug, and the grey-eyed girl turns to her green eyed friend. “We’re not like other systems, not even other clan-based system. Here, Clan _means_ something more than just a loose association of families. It doesn’t just mean you’re related, it means you’re _bound_ to each other. You owe each other loyalty and support. Clans have their own infrastructure, you know, so when the system goes to shit, these people will fight for you, and everybody in a clan works together to make sure everyone is fed and housed and looked after in a way small nuclear families simply can’t, either because of a lack of resources or a lack of skills, or even just a lack of kinship. The whole clan works together under the nearer authority of the Clan Leader and their vod.”

“So a clan leader is like a mayor, really.”

“More like a monarch.”

Keto’s nose wrinkled in confusion. “But the _Mand’alor_ is –“

“See, this is the trouble with translation.” Var’de mutters derisively. “ _Mand’alor_ is the _ultimate_ authority. Not just governmentally, but spiritually. His role is _sacred_. What he represents is intrinsic to who we are as a people. Clan Leaders don’t have the same role in Mandalorian faith, but they do still have a similar, decisive authority over their own. How else would we get anything done? I will say that disobeying your Clan Leader isn’t _quite_ as severe as not giving due to the _Mand’alor_ , but it’s still not really a done thing. You can question their commands, but if you refuse to adhere to the decisions they make on behalf of the Clan – you better have a damn good reason, or be on your way out. You need a good, strong leader, and a good leader needs their clan’s support, if we all want to survive. And that is the goal – to survive, and to thrive. Even in times like these. Especially in times like these.”

“Where it gets tricky,” someone else butts in, unable to help themselves. “ is when it comes to Houses, see, because then you have-“

Jango passes them by, a little amused by their enthusiasm.

He eyes the thickening crowd, the growing line of landed vessels. Llatt’s will let him know when they’re ready.

“I don’t expect much trouble.” Ben appears – quite possibly out of nowhere – and Jango glowers at him for it. The _jetii_ just smirks mildly, humor dancing in his gaze.

“No murderous hostility?” Jango drawls.

“Oh, murderous hostility aplenty.” Ben remarks, falling into step with him. “But everyone is keeping a fairly tight lockdown on it. There’s more hopeful determination here than I think you realize. Your people – or at least, those who have decided to represent here – _want_ this to work. The promise of a unified Mandalore, of a chance to actually rebuild and grow again, and a pair of strong leaders to back it…” He trails off, the conclusion clear enough. Jango is slowly getting used to the more casual means of the _jetii’s_ abilities, and Ben is getting less and less cautious of displaying them in his presence.

“A chance to rebuild.” Jango sighs, clenching his jaw as the darker parts of his mind wonder how much of a chance they’ll really have. He eyes his people here; New Mandalorian, Old Tradition, _Haat Mando’ade_ , _Kyr’stad_ , Neutral Clan; warriors and pacifists and people just trying to make a living and be true to themselves…

If the Sith really had their influence in this civil war…. If a bigger war was yet on the horizon…

Tor Vizla had been a _believer_. He had done terrible things in light of that. And why not? Fett knew the histories as well as anyone. Mandalore and the Sith had built their empires together in the past –

But Jango Fett is not one of the _Mand’alor’s_ of old.

The Sith….

They had wanted to _break_ Mandalore. Their vision and Tor Vizla’s way certainly would have.

They would have made either slaves or slavers out of his people, and either was an option Jango Fett would spend every last scrap of his being and bring all his terrible glory to bear in order to prevent.

Mandalore stands before him, and they are _not_ broken.

“Speaking of murderous hostility…” Ben murmurs, giving him a look. _Pray tell_? That lifted brow inquires, blue-grey eyes shaded with concern.

Jango shakes his head, reaching out to clap Ben on the shoulder and squeeze. Ben offers a smile, the cinnamon-haired man tilting into him a bit, and they both look over, caught by the sound of a bright laugh carrying over the general murmur. Obi-Wan has joined Satine, charm and mischief all over his face, and the young Duchess’s eyes are alight, though her expression haughtily pretends she is paying him no mind.

Mandalore and the Jedi, on the other hand….

The thought still makes his mouth twist in habitual disgruntlement, but he has to admit…. He likes the look of a future with them side by side.

Ben makes a noise, and Jango glances over. “What?” He grunts.

Ben offers a guileless expression. “Nothing.”

“ _What_?”

Ben’s lips quirk, and he lifts his shoulders. “Nothing.” He insists, utterly full of it.

Jango rolls his eyes, valiantly resisting the urge to hit him.

~*~

“Shmi!” The jubilant cry is all the warning she has, before she is swept up in a strong embrace and lifted off her feet, Obi-Wan enveloping her like a splash of bright water, all golden, summer-bright and refreshing.

“My feet on the ground, please.” Shmi insists, pinching his ear. He lowers her gently, grinning brightly, and Shmi blinks up into his face. He’s grown a fair bit, his skin a little paler, his face a little leaner, his shoulders wider. His hair is twisting wildly from being in and out of a helmet, and he seems slightly manic with joy. To be fair, the entire planet of Mandalore seemed to feel a bit manic at the moment, and he was living in it.

It’s a somewhat jarring transition after the heady, rich and rather dark power of Dathomir.

“It is good to see you well.” Shmi tells him, cupping his cheek briefly.

“No one told me you were coming! It’s wonderful to see you, Shmi!” The boy beams, and visibly restrains himself from scooping her up again.

“I meant it to be a surprise.” Shmi replies. “I am pleased to know I succeeded.”

“Is it safe to approach? There will be no man-handling of _my_ person, Obi-Wan.” Healer Ni Hiella appear at the top of the ramp, pushing an overloaded crate of medical supplies, the grav-lifters struggling with it.

The padawan balks a little. “Healer Ni Hiella?” He inquires, with good reasonable wariness. The zeltron healer lifts a dark purple brow at him. “It’s good to see you as well, of course, but what are you doing here?”

Ni Hiella cocks a hip, crosses her arms, and casts a gaze across the bustling edge of the city. “A far-flung post on the outer rim, right in the thick of recent destruction? Building a program from the ground up? Marginally hostile locals? Where else was I going to take an assignment? Ben even promised me a padawan.”

“A padawan – oh! Padawan Casra! Yes, she…erm….rather doesn’t want to leave. She’s been adopted, you see.”

“Bold girl.” The Healer-Knight remarks, taking this information in as utterly superfluous. “Can’t wait to meet her and her – the term is _buir_ , yes?”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan replies, eyes getting a little wider. He blinks a few times. “You’ll have to meet her current teacher too.” He adds faintly, then clears his throat. His gaze suddenly narrows, however, and he looked the healer knight over, contemplative. “That…. might actually go really well.” He says. “You’re… I think Mandalorians could get to like you.”

The zeltron healer smiles, looking very ready to go head to head with Mandalorian medical personnel. “I’ll take that as the compliment I’m sure it was, Padawan Kenobi.”

“Oh, it was!” He snaps to, and smirks. “ _Absolutely_.”

She gives him a fond, warning look, and he holds his hands up in cheeky surrender.

After a moment, however, his brow furrows. “Who should I go to for my medical training?” He asks, concerned.

Ni Hiella looks him over. “I left Essja with guidance on that, and Vokara Che’s door is always open to anyone who wants a little more medical expertise.”

Shmi looks him over too. He seems well, but she does not doubt this has been a hard mission. Likely, a little more medical expertise could have served him well, and its lack, if that were the case, would have been keenly felt. Especially since he knew just enough to know what he didn’t know.

Obi-Wan nods.

“Shmi Skywalker!” That call is a little more reserved, but no less jubilant, and Ben opens his stride rather than bounding up to her, offering his palms as opposed to scooping her up.

Shmi grins, appreciative of his reserve, and clasps his hands in turn, squeezing. Her smile falters slightly. Ben’s presence, unlike his padawan, is a tightly tamped down chaotic _mess_ , a thrill of tension just under his skin that feels as if it could very well shock her.

Shmi does not need to look at Ni Hiella to sense the zeltron’s immediate distress, and no doubt the appalled look on her face.

Ben has the good grace to wince.

“ _Ben_.”

“I’ll be seeing Healer Kala the moment I’m home. Until then…. we’re handling it.” He murmurs, his tone firm enough to warn them off pressing the subject. “Meanwhile, there are a few people here who would dearly like to meet you.” He addresses Shmi.

Shmi is skeptical of this. “Me?” She inquires.

“Yes, they are… quite impressed with the modifications you made to the _Lighthawk_.”

Shmi relaxes a little. _Mechanics_ , she could deal with.

“Don’t you run away from me, Ben Naasade.” Ni Hiella warns, giving the medical crate a shove down the ramp. Ben and Shmi shuffle quickly out of the way as the forward end tips too low and scrapes, making a horrid awful screech.

“Ni Hiella.” Ben huffs, exasperated, as the healer follows the crate down.

The noise appears to have drawn the AgriCorps representative, as he darts into the hold, shedding feathers. The poor Rishi was still recovering from his latest molt. “That had better not be my seeds!”

Ni Hiella stiffens, turns, and glowers at him. His crest rises, golden eyes flashing. “Why, pray tell, would I lay a single finger on your seeds, Ab-dabaia?”

“You-“

Shmi draws in a deep breath and clears her throat. The two envoys of their respective Corps pause, glancing at her, and quell under her look. Ab-dabaia’s crest smooths back out, and he preens a moment, righting his feathers. Ni Hiella deliberately looks away from him, her nerf-tail swinging.

Ben and Obi-Wan both blink in bemusement.

“Crechemates.” Shmi supplies them. “The feud is long-standing.”

“Ah.” Ben says. “And they sent them, together, to _Mandalore_?”

Shmi plays her hands. “They both volunteered, and it seemed to amuse Master Yoda. Something about headstrong personalities being in good company.”

“That will be either brilliant or disastrous.” Obi-Wan mutters.

“Hm. Well, at least they won’t have to work _together_.” Ben adds. “There’s plenty enough to go around.”

Shmi looks beyond them, to the city, to the scarred sense of the system beyond that fading daylight, and nods.


	68. Chapter 68

Shmi will have the grace to blush, embarrassed, at some hour past dark, when Obi-Wan comes searching with a platter of some kind of sweet cakes, finding her buried in the guts of a ship, grease on her face, in enthusiastic scheming with one Lin Mereel, several hour past their introduction and long after having accidentally abandoned him and his master.

He laughs off her apologies, delighted that she’s made fast friends with Lin Mereel, and insists she try the cake. Shmi does, letting Obi-Wan and Lin’s quick exchange in _mando’a_ wash over her.

It’s light and crisply sweet. Shmi takes four of them, winding up stuff-cheeked and sticky fingered and so very happy. It is a good break, she thinks, from her duties at the temple, and the constant attention required of an infant and her very exuberant and rather clingy boys. She does not blame them for their clinging – many of the Temples children are scared, emotional, and in dire need of additional comfort and affection of late. No one blames them, but all the desire to be everything they need of you does not in fact give you the boundless energy to do so.

Lin Mereel had been very understanding, as they had both gushed about and shared exasperations over their children in turns, another commonality between them.

Shmi wakes in the wan light of early morning to clatter and swearing, having fallen asleep in Lin’s makeshift work-shop before ever entertaining the thought of heading back to the _Red Bird_. They had been engrossed in mechanisms and schematics until the very early hours.

Shmi jolts awake, hand falling on her lightsaber in a fright-to-fight instinct she doubted she would ever truly lose.

Lin continues swearing, and then starts banging on metal with an irritated manner, and the noise is it a bit much for Shmi just yet. Lin starts when Shmi peels off the shelf-turned-cot she slept on, and then shrugs sheepishly. “Work never really stops these days.” She says, by way of apology.

“I am sure it doesn’t.” Shmi replies, slipping out of the workshop. It is still dim, early, and there is a chill to the air yet, the warning of oncoming winter, carried down from the mountains to the west. She’s told it doesn’t snow as far south as Keldabe, save for the occasional frost.

She breathes it in deep. She’ll have to get used to cold, for her move to Alderaan. That is perhaps the least pleasant prospect of the impending transition.

She catches glimpse of Concordia on the horizon, and lifts her fingers to her heart and then her lips before the moon slips away. “ _Mandokka adtahlyan kumay Ar-Amu_.” Shmi whispers, a brief prayer. “ _Doo wolhsa, ama’kurhah_.”

 _All-Mother, watch over the children of Mandalore. Hold them in your care_.

“Who are your people?”

Shmi sucks in a breath, startled, and turns to see a man just stepped around the front edge of the workshop, looking as if he has woken far too early, pinning her with a sharp golden-brown gaze, unreadable in its depths.

Shmi has no idea how she hadn’t noticed him approaching her. She _excels_ in knowing when people are coming up on her.

Shmi does not answer, shaking her head, and he scowls formidably, irritation rising from him as he takes a stalking step forward. Shmi bristles and lifts her chin, hand falling towards the lightsabers concealed under an oil-stained apron, and he pauses, scowling deeper.

“It’s just a fucking question.” He snaps in accented basic, all but growling as he plants his feet and crosses his arms, gaze skipping to scan the area before raking back to her, alert and cranky. It is very early. For a moment, Keldabe is calm and still.

“What does it matter to you?” Shmi challenges, the people of her tongue and her heart and her painful history something she will _not_ give up to those who could do them harm. She would bite through her own tongue to protect them, if need be. Of all the things Depur took – who they were was not allowed to be one of them, and Depur could not take what Depur did not know of.

The warning in her tone is apparently enough to give him pause. His mouth pulls faintly and his eyes narrow assessing. He nods, coming to some conclusion, and takes a polite half step back.

“Sounded like something someone said over me once. He did that.” The man imitates her gesture with an air of uncertainty, hand briefly touching his chest and then his mouth.

Shmi looks him over, but the scars that scrawl faint and not so faint in his warm tan skin can not be discerned between battle wounds and the abuse of slavery. “Did he tell you a story?” Shmi inquires, peering at him.

An odd, rue smile cracks his face. “He could have told me a hundred. We didn’t speak a tongue in common. He…” His voice drops, brow furrowing, and he looks away, rubbing at one mark in particular, low on the side of his neck.

“He was a slave.” Shmi says for him, simple and blunt as the facts themselves were.

Dark golden-brown eyes fix on her, almost glaring. “So was I.” He spits it like a challenge, and Shmi holds his look. Holds it firm until recognition crosses his face – that he is peaking to someone who _understands,_ in a way only those who have shared such an experience truly can. “He kept me from getting myself killed, when they – at first.” He murmurs, so quiet she barely hears it at all, as if its never before been spoken aloud.

Shmi nods slowly, in recognition, taking a small step towards him.

“I was never able to repay him for that.” He adds, just as quiet, but far more ashamed.

“Dead or traded?” Shmi asks softly.

“Dead.” He returns, voice turning hard and flat. “Too old. Too much spice.”

“Did you know his name?” Shmi offers. “I can show you how we pay our respects.”

Behind them both, the door to the workshop is belted open with a grinding wail, and they both turn with a hard flinch. Lin leans out, looking irritated and confused. “You coming in or what? Don’t you have that to-do this morning?” She gets a better look at him and nearly boils over with sudden irritation. “Where’s your fucking kit? I flew halfway across the thrice-damned system to work over that _beskar’gam_ , and you can’t even be bothered to put it on? Are you _ill_?”

He mutters something derisive in _Mando’a_ , and the blacksmith rolls her eyes, waving an unlit cutting torch.

Shmi remembers to return Lin’s apron, and realizes he recognizes her for a jedi only once her saber hilts are on display, an odd look darting over his face. Shmi holds his gaze for a moment before she bows and departs, Lin all but dragging him into her borrowed forge.

She will only realize hours later that _that_ was Jango Fett, the _Mand’alor_ of Mandalore.

~*~

Ben spends a lovely breakfast with Shmi, Obi-Wan and Ni Hiella. Shmi is due to depart that afternoon, the Corps representatives safely delivered, the padawans due to be safely returned. Obi-Wan and Ben will stay perhaps another ten-day, helping the Corps members negotiate and settle in and putting a few other odds and ends of matters to rest. Obi-Wan, Satine and Sha’me have much to turn over with Fett’s intel hub and Duke Kryze’s spy network, Ben has to ensure that the responsibilities he oversaw for Fett’s military machine are transferred into good hands.

They had taken their meal in a public mess frequented by the majority of Fett’s command staff, and when Ben departs, Obi-Wan, Shmi and Ni Hiella have been drawn into conversation with several Mandalorian’s regarding affairs elsewhere in the galaxy.

He goes in search of Jango. There is to be a public address this afternoon, the first wherein the _Mand’alor_ and his newly elected _Jorad’alor_ will appear together. It won’t be much more than an announcement of the fact that she has been elected - the summit having been untelevised - and a summary of the current state of affairs. No doubt it will also come with a message for the people, a call to overcome, to unify, to look forward. There is much yet for Jango and Satine to hash out, much infrastructure to be rebuilt, before they truly start making gains on developing Mandalore’s new way forward.

He finds Bo-Katan and her two little shadows instead. The younger Fett has confiscated Pre Vizla’s black-painted, laser-edged _bes’kad_ , and the other dozen such blades Clan Vizla had had in their possession. She’d taken to carrying the weapon herself, and Ben wonders how long it will be before she leads a small, elite unit armed with the same. The bes’kad imitation of the darksaber, however, is not what gives him pause. Nor entirely that she is sparring with Serra Keto and Mavi Var’de.

It’s the _beskar_ cuirass on Serra’s chest that makes him stop and eye the three of them. The single molded plate, buckled over her shoulders, is painted in a wash of soft watercolor shades: sky blues and pinks and oranges that remind the eye of sunrises – and stamped across her chest, in a rich brown so dark it at first appeared black, was a pair of _jaig_ eyes.

He looks from the mark, to Keto’s eyes, to the mark, and lifts a brow. The girl doesn’t even look sheepish. Bo-Katan’s countenance, however, takes on a slightly nervous edge when he cuts his gaze to _her_ , though she covers it with a defiant lift of her chin.

He decides it is better, for his state of mind and the reports that will eventually be made to the Council, that he not inquire just exactly _how_ Serra Keto managed to earn that particular honor.

He nods at them and moves on, shaking his head.

It takes him longer than he expects to track Jango down, because the man is in the least likely place Ben expected – that is, he’s nowhere in the midst of things. Ben finds him holding command from the holotable in his ship, and when he does find him, he immediately registers why.

“Is there something wrong with your _beskar’gam, vod_?” Ben inquires, because Jango isn’t _wearing_ it, and he doesn’t look fresh from a shower, though his hair is neatly groomed – not having been flattened yet in a bucket – and his face clean-shaven. The younger man glowers at him impatiently, finishes up a terse conversation with Rav Bralor on her latest Kyr’stad holdout hunt, and cuts off his holo-comm.

Ben blinks. “Oh.”

With the holo out of the way, he can see what Fett _is_ wearing more clearly.

Ben leans against the frame of the door. He does _try_ and keep his grin tamped down.

He’s in silks. That is, he’s in diplomatic finery made of concordian silk. Not even a bodysuit.

A close-collared shirt of deep maroon, high at the back of the collar but open at his throat, an artistic geometric pattern of white and gold traced the silhouette of where armor might otherwise be, as was common in Mandalorian fashion. Over that is a long, formal vest-coat, closed at the waist but with a double breast pinned open. The vest is black, the cut militaristic, the style practically a dare to think he was vulnerable. The belt was less a belt so much as a band of polished _beskar_ , and the pins – there where two on his left side, slim ruby red darts. But the pin on his right was a polished _beskar_ signet, the mythosaur skull of the _Mand’alor_ wrought with three lilies.

Fastened to his shoulders where _beskar_ clasps, and Ben can make out the top of a dark lilac shimmer. The darksaber hung on his belt, but his blasters were noticeably absent.

“No crown?” Ben drawls, eyeing him up and down appreciatively.

Hi _vod_ glares at him, and the _loathing_ in that look – hid embarrassment.

Ben’s grins widens. “ _Jango_.” He entreats, delighted.

It isn’t a crown so much as a helm that he lifts from the seat beside him, reluctantly donning the slim half-circlet that rests over his brow, a band of burning gold.

It makes his eyes gleam, turn molten, and Ben can’t see him as being any less dangerous here and now than in his full _beskar’gam_. More so, perhaps – the _beskar’gam_ at least lent credulity to the fact that he was a man, that he could be wounded. The silks… he wore them like a declaration that they could try and try, and he would still be untouchable.

It was a _good_ look.

It helped that the man in question was certainly easy on the eyes.

Ben reigns in his teasing, however, because he’s certain Jango is, underneath all of – himself – uneasy without his _beskar’gam_.

“So,” He remarks instead, glancing way to put his friend under less scrutiny. “ this is your apology to Satine?”

“I am not – _apologizing_.” Jango growls.

Ben gives him a look, and Jango grumbles beneath his breath.

~*~

As imposing and powerful as Jango Fett is, Satine Kryze is a vision of dignity and grace in white and lilac, with a few details of teal and gold, a dark maroon cloak draped from her shoulders from _beskar_ clasps, those golden glass flowers in her hair, polished _beskar_ vambraces on her arms, a black helm on her brow to match the black gemstones dripping from her ears, and the black and beskar decorative belt cinched high on her waist. They present as perfect compliments of strength.

Obi-Wan, however, was the only one who got to witness Satine’s slack-jawed shock when Fett finally met them back-stage before the adress.

“You’re not…. but…. _why_?”

Jango had looked her firm in the eye, something almost deferent in the _Mand’alor’s_ gaze. “We’re both capable of doing stupid things for the future of Mandalore.” He mutters, utterly irreverently, and then tugs on his collar in displeasure.

Satine had recovered quickly, jaw clicking shut, though she had still _stared_ at him.

His look had turned slowly into a glower back at her, for her staring. He offers his arm impatiently, and Satine collects herself enough to clasp it, wrist to elbow. His glower fades, and he holds her there for a moment.

“Adonai Kryze was twice the man most of us can ever hope to be, _mandokarla_ through and through. _G’ad ijaat tome’tayl_ , Satine Kryze. There is nothing you have done that he would not be proud of.” He slides his grasp loose, clasps her hand, and lifts it, pressing his lips to her knuckles and then clasping his other hand over hers. _As his child, you deliver upon the honor of his legacy_.

It’s _not_ an apology, except in every way that it is so much more than that.

Work ceases for the day, even with so much yet to do. Celebration takes to the streets, relief and hope uprooting despair and pain, even if just for a little while, like sunlight dissipating a damp fog. Obi-Wan can barely keep up with Satine, as walks through the streets, the markets, the spontaneous parties and games and music. There is no formal parade, but everywhere they go, her people shout her name, loud and raucous and so very Mandalorian. They are all but pulled through the streets by her people, drawn into dancing and treated to more food than they could possibly stomach, plied with drinks though most are politely declined or else covertly disappeared so as not to cause offense. A drizzle starts, a wet, misty thing that deters no one, and Obi-Wan lets the joy simmer in his blood, lets the energy of the people carry him, sing through him, giddy with it.

He and Satine dance more than once, egged on by the passion and enthusiasm of the crowds, the _Mando’ad_ laughing as he quickly tried to learn the steps, dragging him into the throng and passing him from partner to partner until he’s dizzy and laughing at himself and a little bruised after a few rounds.

He stumbles, abruptly released by his current partner and quite possibly shoved in her direction; she stumbles and they catch each other, both flushed and buoyant. Her maroon cape is trailing mud, her skirts splattered. The rain had dampened her hair, strands sticking wildly to her face, her cheeks flushed pink with the cool air and exercise, music and voices a wash of noise around them. Obi-Wan can only imagine the state of himself. They clasp arm to arm, almost unwittingly, and lock gazes.

 _You’re beautiful_ , he thinks.

 _I love you_ , he thinks.

He would declare for her, right now, in the customs of their people. Bind their wrists and claim her his _rukar’ta_ – his heart and soul. To traverse life at her side… he yearns for it, fiercely and devastatingly; for every ounce of her passion, for every warm brush of her affection, for the cold heat of her anger and the sparkling peace of her quiet moments.

She draws in a breath, as if she can see the promise waiting on his lips, in his gaze, in every brimming fiber of his being and her silver-blue eyes, already ablaze, soften in warmth, in love, burning with understanding and a _want_ that mirrors his own _._

‘I would.’ Obi-Wan mouths, softer than anything.

‘I know.’ She mouths back, her grasp clinging to him fiercely. But she gives the softest shake of her head too, and Obi-Wan knows, _knows_ that she is right, that they can’t, that denying this is the right thing to do. The Jedi need him, need his focus and his commitment for what is to come. And the _Mando’ade_ , all of Mandalore, needs just the same from her.

He shudders, and reels her in close, pressing their brows together. Satine leans into him fully, just as possessive.

“I love you.” She breathes against his mouth.

“I love you.” He utters back, utterly certain. She seems to burn in the Force, bright passion glowing through her skin beneath his hands, soaking into him more surely than the rain.

Whoops and cheers crow out around them, and they both grin into each other, blushing and grumbling and sighing good naturedly at the well-meant teasing.

~*~

“Did you – get married?” Ben inquires, falsely ambivalent, staring at his padawan.

Obi-Wan jerks, having been lost in thought, his presence a touch melancholy, and looks to him, one hand darting to the tattoo Ben can plainly see just over the loose edge of his open collar, shiny with the touch of bacta.

The mark, done in a shimmering shade of pale lilac purple, is quite clearly the symbol of the Jedi Order, with Mandalorian lilies vining up it and blossoming around it.

An entire cascade of expressions flicker over his padawans beloved face, complicated and indiscernible, before Obi-Wan blinks a few times, getting a good look at his master, and goes back to absently retying his padawan braid, fresh from a shower.

“Did _you_?” Obi-Wan returns, just as mild, and Ben feels his eyes pinch.

He has, at last, finally received a new _beskar’gam_ kit, which, at the great behest of a good few arguing artists and smiths, is just as vividly changed as the silks he’d been given.

For one, he is in an actual split breastplate, instead of an extended chest-plate. There are no upper vambraces either, at Ben’s own request – a small concession to the fact that after this war, and especially with the disheartening warnings of what may yet be ahead of him, he yearns to be a bit less _designed_ for battle.

The _beskar’gam_ is painted like blackened copper, with the look of brushed copper too – brushed in a swirling pattern that offered just the faintest bright gleam that danced when the light hit it right. The two suns remain over his left breastplate, smaller and starker than before and more sharply defined, one a white-yellow-gold, the other a flaring orange just edged in red. A hybrid sigil of the jedi order and mandalore in that same white-yellow-gold adorns his right shoulder, the mythosaur skull framed in wings, imposed overtop the bursting blade. The silver mark etched under the left eye of his amber visor – the stylized rendition of the scar Cody had claimed for himself, made smaller and neater and placed for grief, is colored for truth and discipline – a match the inscription on his lower left vambrace for color. Writ in _mando’a_ , the inscription is etched through the paint to bring out the polished silver shine of raw beskar; _I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me_.

The entire set, especially when worn over his new silks, was somehow both more muted and yet more visually imposing than his last.

But his padawan had glanced not at the sigil on his shoulder, but at the vambraces on his arms.

Which were _maroon_. Not so subtly, they would seamlessly fit into the color pattern on Fett’s armor, as Fett’s would suit Ben’s.

“Someone thought they were being quite clever.” Ben mutters.

“Has Fett seen you yet?” Obi-Wan teases brightly.

Ben lifts a warning brow at the boy, but Obi-Wan just laughs, his fingers still playing with the edge of his collar, edging around the tattoo.

Ben wouldn’t know, but Satine had acquired a small tattoo as well, two bursting stars separated by a single line: _Passion, Yet Serenity_.

“No.” Ben replies flatly. Obi-Wan snickers a little more brightly, shaking his head, and Ben looks to the ceiling. _Force give me strength_.

“Have you heard how high those bets are getting?” Obi-Wan teases mercilessly.

Ben has, quite frankly, and he wished, dearly, that the _Mando’ade_ were less literally invested in whether or not he and Fett were bedding each other.

He’s also slightly impressed that Bo-Katan didn’t out them after having – well, she _had_ been pretty mortified. Ben had been embarrassed himself - for their carelessness of not even having bothered to lock the door if nothing else - though he had been a bit… caught up. He hadn’t realized quite how much he’d _craved_ intimate contact, though he’d certainly had flashes of interest before.

Jango, as it had turned out, had been in quite the same life-pod, the both of them less interested in slaking lust so much as needing the simple, inexplicable comfort and reassurance of wholly trusting another person, of being allowed to be completely open and unguarded and still desired. In large part, simply needing to be _touched_ , with neither of them having to fear doing so, nor having to commit anything more than they were willing to, no questions asked, no wounds opened up, just… accepted.

As embarrassed as the jedi had been at being caught like a tactless padawan, _Jango_ was the one who’d had to gather the nerve to look his daughter in the eye the next morning as if he was utterly unbothered, just so she’d have the chance to save face.

“Don’t remind me.” Ben answers dryly, and eyes his padawan after a hesitation. He and Satine – as his master, Ben should probably attempt to caution…he himself recalls – abruptly, Ben decides that that is _not_ a conversation he feels capable of broaching, at all. Obi-Wan has had his lectures in health and relationships at the temple. He is a good, responsible padawan. That should have to be enough.

Obi-Wan is completely correct about Jango’s reaction to actually seeing Ben’s new armor. Bo-Katan’s blanching indignation as she turned on her _buir_ , demanding “Did you get _married_?!” which makes the _Mand’alor_ choke for a moment, followed abruptly by “Why wasn’t I at the _wedding_?” however, prove to be greatly mollifying.

“There are no witnesses.” Jango snaps. “No witnesses, no wedding.”

Ben opens his mouth -

“ _Vod_.” That warning was absolutely _deadly_.

Ben sighs, aggrieved, and turns earnestly to Bo-Katan, who may have actually been upset at the prospect of missing such a wedding. Ben knows the feeling, so he won’t torture the poor girl. “We are _not_ married.” He assures her.

The teasing persists, but it becomes background noise, as busy as they are over the next few days.

When Ben and Obi-Wan finally do leave, Mandalore is a long way from recovery, but she has a _good_ start.

~*~

Five weeks after the _jetiise_ departed, Jango is sorely missing Ben’s organizational skills and keen knack for logistical management. He’s half tempted to send reports and lists and budget summaries to his _vod_ , but it’s one thing to get his advice, and another to try and get him to run half of Mandalore from the other end of the galaxy.

Jango has never had to manage infrastructure on quite this scale before, and he’ll admit – to himself, at least – that it’s daunting. He’s still working on developing a council of advisors, as is Kryze, and they argue over their options constantly, trying to arrange that they share a single council, rather than forming two which will ever be deadlocked at odds with each other.

At the moment, Jango is surveying the reclamation efforts at Sundari. The great dome has been cracked like an egg and pulled apart, slag and rubble forming great heaps as it’s removed and piled in the wastes outside. Legions of tents fan out in sheltered rows for workers and representatives and the transient groups of evacuees, coming in on rota to be escorted back to what remains of their homes, reclaiming what they can if they can, having had no chance during the initial assault and evacuation.

Sundari will never be what it was, but it’s not a total loss.

There’s plenty of relief efforts here too, a good majority of the workers currently clearing rubble being displaced former citizens with nowhere else to go and naught else to do. Keeping them housed, fed, and in medical care is one of the struggling efforts Jango is here to get a better sense of.

“ _Mand’alor_.” A gesture at his right catches his attention, directed up the roadway between tents to the dust-up of a ship – a few, actually, one light cruiser and a small compliment of armed transports, not mandalorian in design – landing. Jango scowls and taps a pair of _verde_ to go with him as he heads that way. He doesn’t need a guard - though of course the _Mand’alor_ and the _Jorad’alor_ have a personal compliment of them, as is tradition - but he’d like to have someone on hand to pawn guests off on in he decides it’s not worth dealing with.

What meets him when he finally makes his way past the tents is an orderly line of offloading supplies, a small cohort of grey and white clad personell, faces shadowed by neat, low brimmed caps, and what he fears is _another_ diplomatic envoy from the republic. He’s had to scare a few off already, come in to make sweet promises and pick the bones of a struggling system. The Trade Federation had tried twice – first with him and a second time with the Duchess.

He’d only found out about the second time when Satine had commed him and promised they weren’t coming back, sheepishly admitting, through her irritation, that she may have caused trouble by ensuring that.

Jango had just lifted a brow and told her they’d take the trouble when it came, she’d done well.

“ _I don’t know why I expected a different reaction_.” She’d muttered, looking both peeved and pleased, and then signed off. Jango had frowned after, because she’d looked rather pale and tired and he was getting concerned. She’d seemed a bit ill of late.

The woman in the middle of the orderly dissemination line, surveying the ruined dome while her skirts tugged in a breeze, looked like some delicate flower far from home, though what he mistook at first for a dress was in fact a skirted coat over a more practical white shirt detailed with silver flowers, and grey pants tucked crisply into black boots. The coat was….elaborate, and far too clean and fine for wastelands and rubble, all rich blue velvet with bronze buttons, a white fur stole over the shoulders. Her hair was done up in a braided coif, threaded through with silk and pearl-tipped pins, and her lips painted with a fair shimmer.

She’s young, and lovely, and Jango doesn’t like her on premise alone, already irritated that no one seemed to bother to ask if they were _welcome_ in his fucking sector of space before dropping in, though they must have passed through a security checkpoint to have gotten this far.

He should probably issue some sort of order, in that regard.

“Look,” Jango starts, roughly, stalking up to her. She doesn’t balk, which is either idiocy or too much diplomatic training, watching him with dark eyes. “I don’t fucking-“ He glances sharply at two of her grey-capped peons that abruptly move to her side with the curt functionality of security enforcement.

“ _Doslanir ijaat, Mand’alor_.” _Honorably met, Mand’alor_. It falls from her lips easily, with all the right inflections, and Jango takes pause, eyeing her shrewdly. Her expression is serene, the light in her dark brown eyes – a contrast of cold evaluation and mischief.

Damn. _Damn_. He looks her over again – he doesn’t usually miss it on the first glance, but her armament isn’t so much concealed as _designed_ into her regalia. That layered skirt on her coat could hide a host of small weaponry, and he’d bet every one of those pretty pearl tipped pins in her hair was laced with either poison or sedative, in a pinch. When he meets her gaze again, she lifts an elegant brow with a far more reserved grace than even the Duchess had yet mastered, the lightest of wry smiles turning up her lips at the corner.

“We have a few friends in common.” She remarks pleasantly and steps forward, offering her arm for a proper Mandalorian greeting. Jango still isn’t sure he shou;ld give it – she looks petite enough he could probably break her on accident. But there is a wealth of patient reserve in her manner, while she waits for him to meet her as is proper.

Jango clasps her arm, lightly.

The grip he gets in turn is anything but the limp clasp of a Coruscanti diplomatic flower that he expects.

He gets an abashed, sinking feeling, his estimation of her rising. That’s _twice_ now.

He firms up his grip, kicking himself, and her smile warms as she releases him.

She splays her hands, palms turning up, and her chin tilts just slightly to one side – a respect among equals. “Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan.” She introduces herself, still standing close. She clasps her hands together again – habit, he supposes - and her expression cools, gaze turning intent and unyielding, exposing the indomitable strength of spirit her slight figure and soft trapping had hidden. “I believe there are matters we should discuss, you and I.”

Jango frowns, guarded.

Queen Breha _Organa_ , he thinks. Of _Alderaan_.

A few friends in common.

He could _guess_.

“Such as?” He asks, with just as much quiet severity as her own, tension easing in his spine but pooling in his gut.

“The Jedi,” She says, her tone as resolute as a warning. “ and the future of the Republic.”


End file.
